Inkberry, beachberry, or fanflower (Scaevola plumieri (L.) Vahl) is a strand plant, a colonizer, trapping and stabilizing sands along tropical and subtropical beaches. The plant is tolerant of drought, salt, wind, and unrelenting sunlight. The shrub grows to one meter (3 feet) in height, but in many locations, its true size may be hidden—the tips of the branches protruding from under a mound of sand. Once dunes are stabilized, other plants become established and land is 'created'.
The name fanflower comes from the arrangement of the five petals. The petals are fused at the base, but are all on one side and spread like a hand fan. The many stamens are attached near the base of the petals. The pistil arches over the stamens. The stigma at the tip of the pistil has an unusual structure, a pollen cup, probably an aid in collecting pollen from visiting insects. Bees are the primary pollinators.
The fruit is drupe-like, containing a single seed and about the size of an olive. It ripens to a dark purplish black. In the Caribbean, iguanas have been seen eating the leaves of inkberry and one of its many names, gullfeed, suggests gulls take the fruit, but apparently little is known about what animals may forage on inkberry.
Inkberry is a member of the Goodeniaceae (Leschenaultia family), a family that is mostly limited to Australia and Oceania. The Goodeniaceae has fourteen genera, but only the Scaevola radiated outward. The drift seeds of the inkberry reached Africa, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, and land around the Gulf of Mexico.
(Compiled from: Hortus Third, Staff of L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan Publishing, 1976; Contemporary Plant Systematics, Dennis W. Woodland, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1991; Guide to the Vascular Plants of Florida, Richard P. Wunderlin, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1998; and Florida Wildflowers in Their Natural Communities, Walter Kingsley Taylor, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1998)
