Cordia Explained

Cordia is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae. It contains 228 species of shrubs and trees, that are found in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Many of the species are commonly called manjack, while Spanish; Castilian: bocote may refer to several Central American species in Spanish.

The generic name honours German botanist and pharmacist Valerius Cordus (1515–1544).^[1] 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".^[2]

Selected species

See main article: List of ''Cordia'' species.

• Cordia africana Lam. – White manjack
• Cordia alliodora (Ruiz & Pav.) Oken – Spanish elm, Ecuador laurel, salmwood, bocote (Neotropics)^[3]
• Cordia boissieri A.DC. – Anacahuita, Texas olive (southern Texas, Northern Mexico)
• Cordia curassavica (Jacq.) Roem. & Schult. – Black sage, wild sage
• Cordia dentata Poir. – White manjack
• Cordia dichotoma G.Forst – Fragrant manjack, bird lime tree (Tropical Asia and Australasia)^[4]
• Cordia leucophlyctis – (endemic to the Galápagos Islands)
• Cordia lutea – Yellow cordia (western South America, including the Galápagos Islands)
• Cordia monoica
• Cordia myxa L. – Assyrian plum (South Asia)
  Cordia domestica is treated as a separate species by some sources, and as C. myxa var. domestica by others.^[5] Cordia obliqua (the clammy cherry) has been placed in the "Cordia myxa complex", or treated as a synonym for Cordia dichotoma.^[6]
• Cordia platythyrsa Baker – West African cordia
• Cordia rupicola Urban – Puerto Rico manjack (Puerto Rico)
• Cordia sebestena L. – Geiger tree, large-leaf Geigertree (southern Florida, Greater Antilles, Central America)
• Cordia sinensis Lam. (=C. gharaf) – Grey-leafed saucerberry
• Cordia subcordata Lam. – Kou, tou, marer (Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, northern Australia, Pacific Islands)
• Cordia sulcata DC. – Mucilage manjack, laylay, white manjack, wild clammy cherry
• Cordia trichotoma (Vell.) Arráb. ex Steud.

Formerly placed here

• Carmona retusa (Vahl) Masam. (as C. retusa Vahl)^[7]

Ecology

Cordia species are used as food plants by the caterpillars of some Lepidoptera species, such as Endoclita malabaricus, Bucculatrix caribbea, and Bucculatrix cordiaella.^[8] The wild olive tortoise beetle (Physonota alutacea) feeds on C. boissieri, C. dentata, C. inermis, and C. macrostachya.^[9]

Uses

Ornamental

Many members of this genus have fragrant, showy flowers and are popular in gardens, although they are not especially hardy.^[10]

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.

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.^[10]

Ziricote^[11] and bocote^[12] are sometimes used as tonewoods for making the backs and sides of high-end acoustic guitars such as the Richard Thompson signature model from Lowden.^[13] Similarly, drums are made from C. abyssinica, C. millenii, and C. platythyrsa due to the resonance of the wood.^[14]

Smoking

Cordia leaves can be dried and used to smoke marijuana with.^[15]

Notes and References

1. Book: Quattrocchi, Umberto . CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: A-C . 2000 . CRC Press . 978-0-8493-2675-2 . 612–613.
2. 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 . 40035480 . amp .
3. Book: Grandtner, Miroslav M. . Elsevier's Dictionary of Trees . 1 . Elsevier . 2005 . 978-0-444-51784-5 . 252–260.
4. Web site: Cordia dichotoma Forst. f. . Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Plant Growth Facilities . University of Connecticut . 2009-10-06 . 2009-10-20 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080515210142/http://florawww.eeb.uconn.edu/acc_num/198500500.html . 2008-05-15 .
5. Web site: Cordia domestica . The Plant List . 2015-06-26.
6. Web site: Cordia obliqua . The Plant List . 2015-06-26.
7. Web site: Species Records of Cordia. Germplasm Resources Information Network . United States Department of Agriculture . 2010-08-21.
8. Two new Neotropical species of Bucculatrix leaf miners (Lepidoptera: Bucculatricidae) reared from Cordia (Boraginaceae) . Donald R. . Davis . Bernard Landry . Lazaro Roque-albelo . Revue Suisse de Zoologie . 109 . 2 . 2002 . 277–294 . 10.5962/bhl.part.79591. free .
9. Web site: Wild Olive Tortoise Beetle Physonota alutacea Boheman, 1854 . Mike . Quinn . Texas Beetle Information . Texas Entomology . 2010-04-05.
10. Book: Bennett, Masha . Pulmonarias and the Borage Family . registration . 2003 . Timber Press . 978-0-88192-589-0 . 196–198.
11. http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=+Backs+and+Sides&NameProdHeader=Ziricote Luthiers Mercantile page about Ziricote
12. http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=+Backs+and+Sides&NameProdHeader=Bocote Luthiers Mercantile page about Ziricote
13. Richard Thompson . Anil . Presad . Guitar Player . October 2009 . 50 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110610003500/http://www.richardthompson-music.com/docs/Guitar%20Player.pdf . 2011-06-10 .
14. Book: Tudge, Colin . The Tree . Random House . 2007 . 978-0-307-39539-9 . 237.
15. Web site: 2021-01-13. Why leaf pre-rolled cones make the cleanest, tobacco-free blunts. 2021-01-14. Leafly. en-US.