Clerodendrum was
named by
Linnaeus in
Species Plantarum in 1753. The name is derived from two
Greek words,
kleros, meaning "chance or fate" or "clergy", and
dendron, "a tree". It refers to the considerable variation in reports of the usefulness of
Clerodendrum in medicine, He recognized about 90 species, defining the genus broadly to include species that others had placed in
Rotheca,
Volkameria, and
Ovieda. His
circumscription was followed by most authors for the next 100 years, even though it was widely believed to be problematic. This situation was remedied in 1998 with the revival of
Rotheca. In 2004, a study of
DNA sequences showed that the
monospecific Australian genus
Huxleya was
embedded in a clade of
Clerodendrum species that had formerly been placed in
Volkameria.
Huxleya was then sunk into
synonymy with
Clerodendrum. The 2004 study sampled
Aegiphila,
Tetraclea, and
Amasonia, three
New World genera of
Ajugoideae that had not previously been sampled for DNA. The results of this study cast doubt, once again, upon the
monophyly of
Clerodendrum. In 2010, a study of four
chloroplast DNA
intergenic spacers showed that part of
Clerodendrum was closer to the New world genera than to other
Clerodendrum, and that one species of
Clerodendrum was nested within the clade of New World genera. The authors of this study resurrected the genus
Volkameria and assigned to it about 30 species that had been in
Clerodendrum. They also resurrected
Ovieda as a
monotypic genus consisting of
Ovieda spinosa.
Volkameria and
Ovieda had been erected by
Linnaeus in 1753. Modern
cladistic analysis has largely vindicated his concepts of
Clerodendrum and its relatives. ==Traditional medicinal use==