Morinda
(from Morus, a Mulberry, and Indica, Indian). Indian Mulberry. SYN. Sphaerophora (of Blume). ORD. Rubiaceae. A genus comprising about forty species of stove, erect or scandent, glabrous or rarely pubescent shrubs or trees, all natives of the tropics. Flower-heads usually white, long or shortly pedunculate; calyx tube, urceolate, or hemispherical; limb short, truncate or obscurely dentate, persistent; corolla funnel-shaped or salver-shaped; tube short; throat glabrous or pilose; limb usually five-lobed, coriaceous, valvate. Fruit fleshy, consisting of the berries of the several flowers in a head, united into one compound berry. Leaves opposite, rarely three or four in a whorl. The species best known to cultivation are those here described. For culture, see Hamelia.
M. bracteata (bracteate). fl. pure white, disposed in small heads; corolla with a very villous throat; peduncles solitary. May. l. oblong, shining, on short petioles. India, 1816. A small tree.
M. citrifolia (Citron-leaved). fl. white, disposed in small heads; peduncles short, opposite the leaves, bractless. fr. combined into an ovate mass, creamy-white. l. oblong, attenuated at both ends, shining. Branches tetragonal. Tropical Asia, Australia, 1793. A small tree. M. jasminoides (Jasmine-like).* fl. pale buff; peduncles axillary, forked, bearing two leaves and two capitula, each of from two to five flowers. April. fr. orange-coloured. l. lanceolate or elliptic, entire, shortly acuminated, sometimes undulated, with or without foveolated blotches in the axils of the nerves. Australia, 1833. A variable shrub. (B. M. 3351.) M. tinctoria (dyer's). fl. pure white, with a Jasmine-like fragrance, in oval heads; peduncles opposite the leaves, solitary, much longer than the petioles. June. fr. green, like that of M. citrifolia. l. oblong, almost sessile, smooth, but not shining, from 6in. to 10in. long. India, Malay Archipelago, &c., 1826. The bark of the root of this species is used to dye red. Tree.