Tropical Plant Database - Plant Details

This plant is a shrub, reaching up to 4 m high. The leaves are hairy, heart-shaped, and pointed, 7-20 x 6-17 cm. The flower colors are variable, ranging from bright red to orange or rarely white and bunched together in clusters 45 x 25 cm. The fruit is also bright red, but turns dark purple or black when ripe, with four deep creases separating the fleshy lobes, each containing a single seed.

http://www.hear.org/pier/species/clerodendrum_buchananii_var_fallax.htm

In Hawaii, the bud or root is used as a laxative.

(Staples, G. W. and D. R. Herbst. 2005. A Tropical Garden Flora: Plants cultivated in the Hawaiian Islands and other tropical places. Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, Hawai`i.)

The genus Clerodendron is native to Java and Fiji eastward to the Society Islands and Micronesia. The native range of Clerodendron buchananii var. fallax is Malesia and eastward possibly to the Society Islands. It is widely cultivated and sometimes naturalized on various Pacific islands.

This plant is potentially invasive, spread by sucker or seeds eaten by birds.

(http://www.hear.org/pier/species/clerodendrum_buchananii_var_fallax.htm)

We currently have 8 herbarium specimens for Clerodendrum buchananiiDONOTUSE var. fallax in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.

• 020616 - collected by W. M. Bush in 1974
• 022152 - collected by F. R. Fosberg in 1978
• 020614 - collected by Shawn Lum in 1983
• 020619 - collected by Tim Flynn in 1985
• 020617 - collected by Tim Flynn in 1986
• 020615 - collected by Tim Flynn in 1987
• 033931 - collected by Hank Oppenheimer in 2001
• 049580 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2008