Cytinus

Cytinus
Cytinus ruber from Sardinia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Malvales
Family: Cytinaceae
Genus: Cytinus
L.
Species

See text.

Cytinus is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. Species in this genus do not produce chlorophyll, but rely fully on its host plant. Cytinus usually parasitizes Cistus and Halimium, two genera of plants in the Cistaceae family. It has also been found on Ptilostemon chamaepeuce.

Several species are found in the Mediterranean Region, South Africa, with a possibly undescribed species from Madagascar.[1]

Biology

C. capensis and C. sanguineus are dioecious, while C. hypocistis is monoecious.[2]

C. hypocistis has been shown to infect mainly Halimium halimifolium and Cistus monspeliensis in Portugal.[3]

Systematics

The genus Cytinus was previously included in the parasitic family Rafflesiaceae, but is now put into the family Cytinaceae[2] (order Malvales), together with the genus Bdallophytum with four species.

Cytinus ruber is no longer considered a separate species, but is now a subspecies of C. hypocistis.

Uses

The flower of C. hypocistis

The young C. hypocistis is cooked as an asparagus substitute and an extract has been used in herbal medicine for dysentery, throat tumors and as an astringent.[4] C. ruber is also edible and was used in folk medicine as an emmenagogue.[5]

Species

Footnotes

  1. parasiticplants.siu.edu: Cytinaceae
  2. 1 2 Nickrent et al. 2004
  3. Thorogood & Hiscock 2007
  4. Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases: Cytinus hypocistis
  5. The University of Reading: Cytinus hypocistis Archived July 21, 2011 at the Wayback Machine

References

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cytinus.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, January 23, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.