Chiococca alba

Chiococca alba is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, that is native to Florida and the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the United States,^[3] Bermuda,^[2] Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and tropical South America. Common names include David's Milkberry, West Indian Milkberry, Cahinca^[4] and West Indian Snowberry.^[5] The specific epithet, alba, means "white" in Latin and refers to the color of its fruits.^[6]

Description

West Indian Milkberry is an evergreen^[4] woody vine or scrambling shrub that often grows on other vegetation and may reach a height of 6 m (20 ft).^[5] The opposite, simple leaves are 5–11 cm (2.0–4.3 in) long and may be elliptic to ovate or broadly lanceolate in shape. Yellow, bell-shaped flowers up to 1 cm (0.39 in) in length appear throughout the year^[7] on racemes or panicles of six of to eight.^[8] The fruit is a white drupe 4–7 mm (0.16–0.28 in) in diameter^[7] that generally contains two dark brown seeds.^[5]

Taxonomy

Lonicera alba was described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.^[9] It was moved to Chiococca in 1893 by A. S. Hitchcock,^[1] and is considered the type species of that genus.^[10] Stewardson Brown described the Bermuda population of the plant as a new species, C. bermudiana, in 1909 due to its lighter green and larger leaves, larger berries, and wider and longer pedicels. Many authorities consider C. bermudiana a synonym of C. alba.^[2]

Uses

C. alba is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental for its dark green, evergreen foliage and white drupes. It is used in espalier and grown on trellises.^[8] The roots have several medicinal uses, including as a laxative, diuretic, emetic, and antidiarrhoeal.^[5] The plant was sold commercially in Europe and the United States for those purposes at one time.^[11]

References