Redgal

Morinda royoc, known as redgal, yellowroot, cheese-shrub, mouse's pineapple or strong-back, is a sprawling, often scrambling shrub or woody vine in the family Rubiaceae native to southern Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and northern South America, where it grows in coastal scrub, hammocks, thickets and disturbed ground on sandy or limestone soils. The slender, trailing to clambering stems bear opposite, glossy, elliptic to lanceolate leaves with prominent venation and interpetiolar stipules typical of the family. The small white, tubular, five-lobed flowers are aggregated into compact rounded heads, and as in the related noni the flowers fuse to develop into a fleshy, lumpy, multiple fruit that ripens yellow to orange and is edible though strongly scented. The roots are notably yellow and have been used as a dye. Adapted to warm, frost-free coastal environments, the species spreads by seed and by its trailing stems and is frequent in subtropical maritime vegetation.