Scaevola (plant)


Scaevola is a genus of flowering plants in the Goodenia family, Goodeniaceae. It consists of more than 130 tropical species, with the center of diversity being Australia and Polynesia. There are around 80 species in Australia, occurring throughout the continent. Diversity is highest in the South West, where ca. 40 species are endemic.
Common names for Scaevola species include scaevolas, fan-flowers, half-flowers, and naupaka, the plants' Hawaiian name. The flowers are shaped as if they have been cut in half. Consequently, the generic name means "left-handed" in Latin. Many Hawaiian legends have been told to explain the formation of the shape of the flowers. In one version a woman tears the flower in half after a quarrel with her lover. The gods, angered, turn all naupaka flowers into half flowers and the two lovers remained separated while the man is destined to search in vain for another whole flower.
in Rangareddy district of Andhra Pradesh, India.
Scaevola is the only Goodeniaceae genus that is widespread outside of Australia. In at least six separate dispersals, about 40 species have spread throughout the Pacific Basin, with a few reaching the tropical coasts of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
The Hawaiian Islands are home to ten Scaevola species, nine of which are endemic. Eight of the indigenous species are the result of a single colonization event. Scaevola glabra and Scaevola taccada arrived separately to produce a total of three colonizations of Hawaii by Scaevola. Some of the endemic species are of hybrid origin.
Beach naupaka occurs throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans and is considered an invasive species in Florida, USA, and in some islands of the Caribbean including the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas. Beachberry or Inkberry is widespread along the Atlantic coast of the tropical Americas and Africa; however, it is becoming rarer in areas where S. taccada is displacing native coastal plants.
Most Australian Scaevola have dry fruits and sprawling, herbaceous to shrubby habits. By contrast, nearly all species outside Australia have shrub habits with fleshy fruit making dispersal by frugivores easy.
The plant pathogenic sac fungus Mycosphaerella scaevolae was discovered on a Scaevola'' fan-flower.

Taxonomy

The genus Scaevola was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1771. He did not explain the origin of the genus name. It is considered to allude to the one-sided shape of the flower, which has a five-lobed tubular corolla; scaevus in Latin means 'left-handed'. Linnaeus created the genus for a species he had previously described as Lobelia plumieri, which is thus the type species. Linnaeus did not explicitly use the specific epithet plumieri in combination with the genus Scaevola; the combination Scaevola plumieri was first published by Martin Vahl in 1791.

Species

, Plants of the World Online accepted the following species: