Carmona retusa

Carmona retusa
Flower, fruit and leaf
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	(unplaced)
Family:	Boraginaceae
Subfamily:	Boraginoideae
Genus:	Carmona
Species:	C. retusa
Binomial name
Carmona retusa (Vahl) Masam.
Synonyms
Cordia retusa Vahl Ehretia microphylla Lam. Carmona microphylla (Lam.) G.Don Ehretia buxifolia Roxb.

Carmona retusa, also known as the Fukien tea tree or Philippine tea tree, is a species of flowering plant in the borage family, Boraginaceae. Its specific epithet comes from the Latin retusus (blunt), with reference to the leaf apex.

Description

Carmona retusa is a shrub growing to 4 m height, with long, straggling, slender branches. It is deciduous during the dry season. Its leaves are usually 10–50 mm long and 5–30 mm wide, and may vary in size, texture, colour and margin. It has small white flowers 8–10 mm in diameter with a 4–5 lobed corolla, and drupes 4–6 mm in diameter, ripening brownish orange.

Distribution and habitat

The plant occurs widely in eastern and south-eastern Asia from India, Indochina, southern China, Taiwan and Japan, through Malesia, including the Australian territory of Christmas Island, reaching New Guinea, mainland Australia at the Cape York Peninsula, and the Solomon Islands. It has become an invasive weed in Hawaii where it is a popular ornamental plant and where the seeds are thought to be spread by frugivorous birds.

On Cape York Peninsula, the plant is recorded from semi-evergreen vine thickets. On Christmas Island, it favours dry sites on the terraces, and sometimes occurs in rainforest.

Uses

The plant is popular in Penjing in China. The leaves are used medicinally in the Philippines to treat cough, colic, diarrhea and dysentery.