Duranta
(named in honour of Castor Durantes, a physician and botanist, who died in 1590). ORD. Verbenaceae. A genus of four or five species of rather pretty free-flowering stove evergreen shrubs, with blue flowers. Probably the only one in cultivation is D. Plumieri. All are natives of the Western hemisphere. Cuttings strike readily in heat, and should be inserted early in spring, and the young plants afterwards grown on in a stove temperature, using for potting a compost of peat and loam in equal proportions. D. Ellisia (Ellisia). A synonym of D. Plumieri.
D. Plumieri (Plumier's).* fl. pretty blue, borne in great profusion in racemes towards the ends of the branches; calyces in fruit twisted. August. l. oblong-lanceolate, acuminate. Branches spinose. h. 6ft. to 15ft. South America and the West Indies, before 1739. SYN. D. Ellisia. (B. M. 1759.)