Commemorating Castor Durantes, early 18th century physician and botanist from Rome.
Trees and shrubs, sometimes spiny. Leaves opposite or whorled, simple, entire or saw-toothed. Flower clusters terminal or axillary, indefinite or branched. Calyx with 5 teeth, swelling with age. Corolla salver-shaped, 5-lobed, white to purplish. Stamens 4, attached above the centre of the tube. Ovary of 8 chambers, each with 1 ovule. Fruit a 4-parted drupe, each part 2-seeded.
Mostly by softwood cuttings, occasionally by seed.
Cultivated species with scrambling prickly stems and yellow succulent fruit.
About 30 tropical species from the Caribbean to tropical America.
Source: (2002). Verbenaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.