Family: RUBIACEAE
Genus: Mussaenda
Species: hybrid
Mussaenda 'Queen Sirikit' is a shrub to 7 m tall with dense hairs on the stems. Leaves are about 15 x 8cm., ovate shaped with a pointed apex and sometimes hairy underneath. In this Mussaenda cultivar the bract-like calyx lobes (calycophylls) are actually more colorful and showy than the flowers. Each flower has 5 pale pink calycophylls up to 15 cm long. The actual corollas are much smaller (and bright yellow. This cultivar rarely sets fruit.
(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 root of M. erythrophylla is chewed in Africa as an appetite stimulant. Bark and leaves of Mussaenda are used medicinally in Samoan and Fijian culture.
(Smith, A. C. 1988. Flora Vitiense Nova Vol. 4)
(McLaughlin, John and Garofalo, Joe. Mussaendas for South Florida Landscapes)
(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.)
Queen Sirikit is a cross between a cultivar of Mussaenda erythrophylla 'Dona Trining', a West African species and a cultivar of Mussaenda philippica ‘Aurorae’ which is native to the Philippines. Queen Sirikit was bred in the Philippines in the 1940s. There are more than 200 known species of Mussaenda worldwide, of which about ten are found in cultivation, with three of these being widely used for landscaping.
(Smith, A. C. 1988. Flora Vitiensis Nova Vol. 4)
(McLaughlin, J. and Garofalo, J. Mussaendas for South Florida Landscapes)
(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.)
In some areas of the world such as tropical Africa the fruits of Mussaenda species are consumed as subsistance food.
(McLaughlin, John and Garofalo, Joe. Mussaendas for South Florida Landscapes)
The flowers are of two different forms, one with long female parts (styles), and the other with short styles. This is strategy, called heterostyly, ensures that flowers are pollinated by pollen from another flower.
(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.)
Queen Sirikit was named for the Queen of Thailand to commemorate her first visit to the Philippines in the 1970's. This is the only Mussaenda cultivar ever to be given a name of a non-Filipino.
(http://toptropicals.com/catalog/uid/MUSSAENDA_peach.htm)
We currently have 8 herbarium specimens for Mussaenda hybrid in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.
- 002511 - collected by Joel Lau in 1985
- 003867 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1989
- 006045 - collected by E. Hughes in 1990
- 008126 - collected by Tim Flynn in 1990
- 039406 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2003
- 051912 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2010
- 060191 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2011
- 085048 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2018
