Another intrepid traveler from tropical America found in Jaffa is Duranta erecta, or the Golden Dewdrop plant. This is a fast growing and usually thorny evergreen shrub or small tree with shiny green leaves and loose clusters of blue or violet flowers. The cluster are about 6”, or 15 centimeters long, made up of scentless flowers that measure about 1 centimeter long and 1 centimeter wide. In time, the flowers turn into golden berries that are about a half a centimeter in diameter. Golden Dewdrops are in the Verbenaceae family whichincludes 32 genera and about 800 species of mainly tropical flowering plants.
The Golden Dewdrop’s scientific name was given to it in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus, an acclaimed Swedish physician and scientist. Linnaeus was the man who developed the “Linnaean binomial” system of naming organisms that we use today. This system places each plant or animal into a family and then names its genus and gives it another name for its species, making the name even more specific to the individual plant. The genus name of the Golden Dewdrop is Duranta, which currently has 17 species listed under it, with most of them being hybrids that have changed the color of the blooms or leaves. Linnaeus chose Duranta to honor Castòre Durante, a botanist and court physician to the court of Pope Sixtus V. Durante lived from 1529 to 1590 and wrote a famous book entitled “Herbario Novo” which documented, in poetry, 900 medicinal plants from Europe and the East and West Indies. The book, was illustrated with woodcuts by Leonardo Parasole da Norica and his wife, Isabella Parasole. It was translated into several languages and was used as a medical reference for over a hundred years. In 1586 Durante also published a book on folk medicines and the nutritional value of meat, vegetables and wine entitled: “Il Tesoro della Sanità”.
While Linnaeus purposely honored Durante by naming the genus of this plant after him, he unfortunately gave the Golden Dewdrop two different species names calling the plant Duranta erecta in one publication and Duranta repens in another. This caused a lot of confusion for hundreds of years. In fact it wasn’t until 1984 that Gail Bromley, a nomenclaturalist at Kew, England, discovered that D. erecta was used to identify the plant in a publication by William Hiern dated 1877. Because this is the oldest reference to the plant after it was named, according to the rules of Taxonomy, this is the name we now use for the plant, although D. repens is considered a synonym and is still used by some botanists to this day.
Both Durante and Linneaus wrote their works in Latin which was the universal language of science unti the late 18th century. The reason why scientists used Latin as their universal language was because nobody spoke it, so the language remained unchanged and unambiguous. Repens is the Latin word for “crawling”, and this word is also a good description of the Golden Dewdrop plant because while the trunk of the plant is “erect”, and with pruning, can be kept as a rounded shrub, the cluster flowers and berries grow on vine-like branches that arch and droop. These branches make the plant looks like it is “semi-weeping” or crawling, like a vine. The drooping branches are the reason for its most common English name. Other English names for the plant are Pigeon Berry, Angel Whisper, Skyflower, Golden Tears, Creeping Skin Flower, Forget-Me-Not Bush, Golden Eardrops, and Brazilian Sky Flower.
Golden Dewdrops are native to Brazil, the West Indies and possibly Mexico where they grow wild in rocky or sandy soil in coastal zones with full sun in humid conditions. In full sunlight the plant can grow up to 10 or 20 feet tall and up to 10 to 20 feet wide. It was once thought that it was also native to Florida and especially the Florida Keys because one plant was found growing in a hammock in Miami-Dade County in 1915 and other specimens were found growing in Columbia County, west of Jacksonville, in 1904. However, there was no solid evidence that these plants grew wild before cultivation so today, in Florida, the Golden Dewdrop is considered a non-native, exotic. As an exotic, we also find it growing all over the sun belt of the U.S. used by landscapers and horticulturalists for background and screening purposes. The plants create a thorny barrier in tropical and subtropical zones while the bright flowers may bloom all year round on terminal and axillary stems, and the golden fruit adds color to landscapes.
Introduced to the Old World at the end of the 1500s because of its medicinal value and as an ornamental, Golden Dewdrops escaped cultivated gardens and is now naturalized in many parts of the world as isolated as the Maltese Islands. More recently, it was widely marketed as a hedge plant because it is so fast growing and makes a good wind breaker. Unfortunately, song birds love to eat the ripened berries. Although the berries are less than a half inch in diameter, each one contains several seeds which pass through the birds’ digestive tracks and are spread far and wide in their droppings. The plants have also been spread accidentally through garden waste disposal by ordinary gardeners but also by people in the nursery trade. In cooler climates the plant will die in the winter, but can be a pretty annual and can even be grown in a pot since it can tolerate a wide range of soils. In that case it will grow 2 to 4 feet tall and stretch from 1 to 2 feet wide. It will continue to grow as long as it is taken indoors in the winter. But in some parts of the tropics it grows so fast and so well that it is considered an invasive species and people fight to keep this thorny pest under control.
The leaves and the fruit of the plant are so poisonous that they have been known to kill cats and dogs and maybe even children that have eaten them. Some people even get a dermatological reaction if they touch the plant. In Australia the Golden Dewdrop is listed as one of the 50 most invasive species in New South Wales and among the top 100 most invasive plants in SE Queensland. It is also a problem in other parts of the world such as Southern Asia, China, South Africa and several island in the Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii. In South Africa the plant is called Vergeet-my-nie-boom in Afrikaans. In China it is called Jia Lian Qiao, in India it is called Kata Mehedi. The French name for the plant is Vanillier de Cayenne and the Tonga name for it is Mavaetangi. In Spanish its name is Cuentas de Oro or San Jacinto, and in its native Brazil the plant it is called Pingo-de-ouro.
While the berries are not poisonous to birds, and the plants produce nectar that is irresistible to butterflies, humming birds and butterflies, Golden Dewdrops contain saponins in the fruit and foliage. These chemicals protect the plant from insects, fungus, and bacterial pathogens. But in humans, these will cause gastrointestinal irritation to the intestinal mucosa, drowsiness, fever, nausea, vomiting, convulsions and even death in serious cases. The plant also contains glycosides, flavonioids, alkaloids, steroids, tannins and terpenoids that have medicinal uses and are reported to be effective treatments for some conditions or diseases, especially those caused by parasites. Recent studies are finding that the Golden Dewdrop plant is a good source of durantol (an antifungal), pectolinaringenin, repennoside, repenins (an antioxidate) and scutellarein (an anticancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory compound). Used as medicine, the plant is safer, more efficient and more culturally acceptable with less side effects than synthetic drugs in Africa, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Thailand. Used as a medicine by tribespeople and medical practitioners in Bangladesh (the Kavirajes) the flowers have been known to be a stimulant. An infusion of the leaves and juice of the fruit acts as a diuretic. The leaves are also known to treat abscesses. The plant is used to treat malaria, and also used as an insect repellent. In the state of Andhra Prades, India, the plant is not only used as an insect repellant but also as a treatment for asthma, bronchitis and fever. In other parts of India the leaves and stems are used to treat cataracts! In SE Nigeria the fruit is again used to treat malaria, as well as abscesses and other infections of parasites like intestinal worms. It is also used to lower fevers. The Chinese also use the juice of the fruit as a mosquito repellent, and discovered that the wood is hard and can be used for stakes, as well as for fuel.
I could not find any sources explaining how the plant was used by ancient people in the West Indies or Brazil where it originated. This is probably because of the rapid mass extinction of native people right after Europeans discovered the New World. I find that it is amazing that healers in the Old World discovered medicinal uses for this relatively new immigrant to their lands. With more modern research the Golden Dewdrop plant may hold even more benefits that will be valuable and acceptable to us all. This is especially important as new pathogens emerge to infect us, and cause panic, illness and death. And while a new vaccine technology was developed to combat infectious microbes like the Covid virus, there is also a lot of resistance to these vaccines and distrust of the Big Pharma companies that developed them. Finding compounds in natural plants that can heal us and guard us against new emerging diseases may prove to be safer, more efficient and more culturally acceptable to American and Europeans as well as the people of Africa and Asia. These newly discovered medicinal uses of plants may also have less side effects than synthetic drugs.
Want to find out more about the Golden Dewdrop plant? Check out these references:
Rattawat Subsongsang, and Wannee Jiraungkoorskul, “An Updated Review on Phytochemical Properties of “Golden Dewdrop” Duranta erecta” National Library of Medicine, Pharmacogn Rev., 2016, Jul-Dec: 10(20): 115-117 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214555/#:~:text=Duranta%20erecta%20(family%3A%20Verbenaceae),%2C%20antioxidant%2C%20and%20insecticide%20properties.
Google Books, “Herbario Nuovo”, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Herbario_nuovo/M3xDAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
HealthBenefits times.com, “Informaton about Golden Dewdrop”, https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/golden-dewdrop/
Gardenia: Creating Gardens, “Duranta erecta (Golden Dewdrop)” https://www.gardenia.net/plant/duranta-erecta
Missouri Botanical Garden, “Duranta erecta”, https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=287483
North Carolina State Extension, “Duranta erecta – Common Name(s): Pigeon Berry”, https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/duranta-erecta/
Cornell Cals, College of Argriculture and Life Sciences, Department of Animal Science – Plants Poisonous to Livestock, “Is Golden Dew Drop poisonous?” https://poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu/php/plants.php?action=faqs&num=68
Michael G. Andreu, et al. “Duranta Erecta, Golden Dewdrop” UF IFAS Extension (University of
Florida), askifas, https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FR327
Stephen Mifsud, “Duranta erecta”, Malta Wild Plants.com, https://www.maltawildplants.com/VERB/Duranta_erecta.php
Prof. Pietro Pavone, translation by Mario Beltramini, “Duranta erecta”, Monaco Nature Encyclopedia, https://www.monaconatureencyclopedia.com/duranta-erecta/?lang=en
Murillo, Golden Dewdrop: Duranta erecta L., https://nomadgarden.gardenatlas.net/garden/murillo/species/golden-dewdrop/?filter=all
Atlas of Florida Plants, “Durante erecta”, https://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/plant.aspx?id=1821
Daniel B. Ward, “Golden-dewdrop: Duranta erecta (Verenaceae), Palmetto, vol. 27, (1) Winter/Spring 2010 https://www.fnps.org/assets/pdf/palmetto/voll27_no1_ward.pdf