Duranta (Duranta erecta):
Alternative Name(s): Geisha Girl, Sheena's Gold.
Family: Verbenaceae.
Form: Shrub
Origin: Native to the Americas from Florida and Texas to Peru, Bolivia and Brazil.
Flowers/Seedhead: About 1.4 cm wide at the end of a tube 0.6–1 cm long. Inflorescence to 20 cm long. Flowers mostly late spring to autumn.
Description: Multistemmed shrub to 4 (rarely to 7) m high. Stems 4-angled when young. Leaves opposite or in whorls, 1–8 cm long, 0.5–3.5 cm wide, sparsely hairy to hairless, margins entire or coarsely toothed above the middle; leaf stalk 0.3–1 cm long. Fruit 5–10 mm wide, appears to be singleseeded but will break up into 4 (rarely 3) nutlets. Nutlets ellipsoid to ovoid, pale brown, 4–5 mm long.
Distinguishing features: Distinguished by branches that often have scattered to common spines on opposite sides of the stem; flowers in terminal and axillary racemes; petals purple, blue or white, united in a tube, two-lipped, one lip with 2 lobes and the other with 3 lobes; fruit ripening orange-yellow, with thin fleshy layer over tightly packed nutlets.
Dispersal: Spread by bat-dispersed and water-dispersed seed.
Notes: Grown as an ornamental and often used for hedging. Naturalised in tropical and subtropical areas. Competes with other vegetation. Leaves, fruit and bark are poisonous. First recorded as naturalised in Queensland in 1931. This species is also a problem in South Africa and Hawaii.