Bontia daphnoides, commonly known as wild olive or white alling,
Description
Bontia daphnoides is a shrub or small tree sometimes growing to a height of with a trunk up to in diameter. The bark is light brown, thick and grooved. Its leaves are arranged alternately, mostly long, wide, elliptic in shape with a mid-vein visible on the lower surface. They are crowded on the ends of the branches and have many small oil glands.
The flowers are arranged singly in the of leaves on a stalk long. There are 5 egg-shaped, green pointed which have hairy edges and the are joined at their bases to form a tube long. The tube has two lobes of different sizes and the lower one is rolled back and covered on its upper surface with a dense layer of purple hairs. The tube is yellowish-brown and covered with many raised oil glands on the outside. Flowers are present for most of the year and are followed by fruits which are roughly spherical with a small beak, pale yellow at first but drying to brown.
Taxonomy and naming
Bontia daphnoides was first formally described in 1753 by
Carl Linnaeus and the description was published in
Species Plantarum.
The
Botanical name (
daphnoides) possibly refers to the similarity of this species to plants in the
genus Daphne.
The species has many common names depending on the language spoken on the island where it is found. The name white alling is used in the
Virgin Islands and wild olive in
Barbados. Other names include olivier bord de mer (
Martinique), mang blanc (
Haiti), mangle (
Puerto Rico) and aceituna americana (
Cuba).
Molecular Phylogenetics work suggests that Bontia daphnoides is deeply nested within the genus Eremophila, a large genus of plants entirely native to mainland Australia, with the majority of species found in the Aridity zone.
Distribution and habitat
Bontia daphnoides occurs on most of the islands in the Caribbean and on the coasts of
Venezuela and
Guyana.
It is naturalised in
Florida.
It grows it coastal areas, often near mangroves where it is often the dominant plant.
Use in horticulture
White alling is grown as a hedge or as a feature plant, especially in areas exposed to salt spray and are common in places like the coasts of Guyana. There are also grown in the high
Andes of Venezuela and often occur as garden escapees.
