Cordia is a
genus of
flowering plants in the
borage family,
Boraginaceae. It contains about 300 species of shrubs and trees, that are found worldwide, mostly in warmer regions. Many of the species are commonly called manjack, while bocote may refer to several
Central American species in Spanish.
The generic name honours German botanist and pharmacist
Valerius Cordus (1515–1544).[3] Like most other Boraginaceae, the majority have
trichomes (hairs) on the leaves.
Taxonomy
The taxonomy of Cordia is complex and controversial. Gottschling et al. (2005) say this is partly due to "extraordinarily high intraspecific variability" in some groups of species, making identification difficult, and partly due to new taxa having been "airily described on the basis of poorly preserved herbarium specimens".[4]
Many members of this genus have fragrant, showy
flowers and are popular in
gardens, although they are not especially hardy.[13]
As food
A number of the tropical species have edible
fruits, known by a wide variety of names including clammy cherries, glue berries, sebesten, or snotty gobbles. In
India, the fruits of local species are used as a
vegetable, raw, cooked, or
pickled, and are known by many names, including lasora in
Hindi. One such species is fragrant manjack (C. dichotoma), which is called gunda or tenti dela in Hindi and lasura in
Nepali. The fruit of the fragrant manjack is called phoà-pò·-chí (破布子), 樹子仔, or 樹子(
Pe̍h-ōe-jī: chhiū-chí) in
Taiwan where they are eaten
pickled.
Glue
The white, gooey inner pulp of the fruits is traditionally used to make glue.[citation needed]
Wood
The wood of several Cordia species is commercially harvested. Ecuador laurel (C. alliodora), ziricote (C. dodecandra), Spanish elm (C. gerascanthus), and C. goeldiana are used to make furniture and doors in Central and South America.[13]
^Gottschling, Marc; Miller, James S.; Weigend, Maximilian & Hilger, Hartmut H. (2005-10-01). "Congruence of a Phylogeny of Cordiaceae (Boraginales) Inferred from ITS1 Sequence Data with Morphology, Ecology, and Biogeography". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 92 (3): 425–437.
JSTOR40035480.
^"Cordia dichotoma Forst. f."Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Plant Growth Facilities. University of Connecticut. 2009-10-06. Archived from
the original on 2008-05-15. Retrieved 2009-10-20.