Nectandra

Life-forms

Classification System: APG IV

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Regnum: Plantae
Cladus: Angiosperms
Cladus: Magnoliids
Ordo: Laurales

Familia: Lauraceae
Tribus: Cinnamomeae
Genus: Nectandra
Species: N. acuminata – N. acutifolia – N. amazonum – N. ambigens – N. angusta – N. angustifolia – N. apiculata – N. astyla – N. aurea – N. baccans – N. barbellata – N. bartlettiana – N. belizensis – N. bicolor – N. brittonii – N. brochidodroma – N. canaliculata – N. canescens – N. caudato-acuminata – N. cerifolia – N. cissiflora – N. citrifolia – N. coeloclada – N. cordata – N. coriacea – N. crassiloba – N. cufodontisii – N. cuneatocordata – N. cuspidata – N. dasystyla – N. debilis – N. discolor – N. egensis – N. embirensis – N. filiflora – N. fragrans – N. fulva – N. furcata – N. gardneri – N. globosa – N. gracilis – N. grandiflora – N. grisea – N. guadaripo – N. herrerae – N. heterotricha – N. hihua – N. hirtella – N. hypoleuca – N. impressa – N. japurensis – N. krugii – N. lanceolata – N. latissima – N. laurel – N. leucantha – N. leucocome – N. lineata – N. lineatifolia – N. longicaudata – N. longifolia – N. longipetiolata – N. lundellii – N. martinicensis – N. matogrossensis – N. matthewsii – N. matudae – N. maynensis – N. megapotamica – N. membranacea – N. micranthera – N. microcarpa – N. minima – N. mirafloris – N. nitida – N. nitidula – N. obtusata – N. olida – N. oppositifolia – N. paranaensis – N. parviflora – N. patens – N. paucinervia – N. pearcei – N. pichurim – N. psammophila – N. pseudocotea – N. puberula – N. pulchra – N. pulverulenta – N. purpurea – N. ramonensis – N. reflexa – N. reticularis – N. reticulata – N. riparia – N. roberto-andinoi – N. rudis – N. ruforamula – N. salicifolia – N. salicina – N. sanguinea – N. smithii – N. sordida – N. spicata – N. subbullata – N. tomentosa – N. truxillensis – N. turbacensis – N. umbrosa – N. utilis – N. venulosa – N. viburnoides – N. warmingii – N. weddellii – N. wurdackii – N. yarinensis
Name

Nectandra Rol. ex Rottb. Acta Lit. Univ. Hafn. 1: 279. (1778) nom. et typ. cons.

Type species: Nectandra sanguinea Rol. ex Rottb. Acta Lit. Univ. Hafn. 1: 279. (1778)

Homonyms

Nectandra P.J.Bergius Descr. Pl. Cap. 131. (1767) nom. rej. vide Passerina L. Sp. Pl. 1: 559. (1753) (Thymelaeaceae Juss.)

Synonyms

Pomatium Nees ex Meisn., Mart., Fl. Bras., 5(2): 252 (1866)
Porostema Schreb., Gen. 517 (1791) partim

Distribution
Native distribution areas:

Continental: Southern America
Regional: Southern South America
Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay
Regional: Central America
Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá
Regional: Western South America
Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru
Regional: Northern South America
Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela
Regional: Caribbean
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Paraguay, Windward Is. .
Regional: Brazil
Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central
Continental: Northern America
Regional: Mexico
Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest

References: Brummitt, R.K. 2001. TDWG – World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, 2nd Edition
References
Primary references

Rolander, D. 1778. Acta Literaria Universitatis Hafniensis 1: 279.

Additional references

Rohwer, J.G. 1993. Nectandra (Lauraceae). Flora Neotropica Monograpg 60, New York Botanical Garden Press, New York, New York. 332 pp. JSTOR

Links

International Plant Names Index. 2016. Nectandra. Published online. Accessed: Oct. 4 2016. Reference page.
Govaerts, R. et al. 2016. Nectandra in Kew Science Plants of the World Online. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published online. Accessed: 2016 Oct. 4. Reference page.
Tropicos.org 2016. Nectandra. Missouri Botanical Garden. Published online. Accessed: 4 Oct. 2016. Reference page.

Vernacular names
العربية: تصنيف:بيارو
English: sweetwood
Tiếng Việt: Thể loại:Nectandra

Nectandra is a genus of plant in the family Lauraceae. They are primarily Neotropical, with Nectandra coriacea being the only species reaching the southernmost United States.[1][2] They have fruit with various medical effects.[3] Sweetwood is a common name for some plants in this genus.[2]
Description

They are trees and bushes, hermaphrodites. The leaves are alternate, entire, glabrous or pubescent pinnatinervias with longitudinal grooves. Simple, alternate, petiole 0.9 to 2.2 cm in length canalicular limbo 11 to 28 cm long and 5 to 11 cm wide, with 16–28 secondary veins; base acute decurrent and revolute, entire, apex elliptically shaped, green dark, and very oblique secondary veins visible on the underside. Terminal buds are whitish. The inflorescences are pseudo-axillary and paniculate, the last divisions cimosas, mostly somewhat pubescent, the flowers are small, rarely more than 1 cm in diameter, and white or greenish tepals equal. The fruit is an ovoid, fleshy drupe with a reddish-pink dome, green when immature and black when ripe.
Ecology
Nectandra cissiflora berry.

A neotropical genus with 114 species, Nectandra is similar to Ocotea, to which it is closely related. The most characteristic distinguishing features are the position of the locules in the anther (in an arc in Nectandra and two rows in Ocotea); papillose pubescence is present; the Nectandra petals are fused at the base itself and fall as a unit in the old flowers; they are free in Nectandra but fall individually in Ocotea.

Medium trees reach 60 cm in diameter and 25 m in height with straight, slender, cylindrical boles with low low and thin protuberances at the base. The various species are located in the middle stratum of forests. Many species are used as timber.[4]

The family Lauraceae was part of the Gondwanaland flora, and many of its genera migrated to South America via Antarctica on ocean landbridges during the Paleocene era. There, they spread over most of the continent. When the North American and South American tectonic plates joined in the late Neogene, volcanic mountains started creating island chains, later forming the Meso-American landbridge.

Pliocene elevation created new habitats for speciation. While some genera died out in increasingly xerophytic Africa, starting with the freezing of Antarctica about 20 million years ago and the formation of the Benguela current, others, like Beilschmiedia and Nectandra, which also reached south and meso-America, are still surviving today in Africa in several species. The genus Persea, however, died out in Africa, except for Persea indica, surviving in the fog-shrouded mountains of the Canary Islands, which, with Madagascar, constitutes Africa's Laurel forest plant refugia. In Meso-America, the genus Nectandra proliferated into new species, and some of its berries constitute a valuable food supply for the quetzal bird that lives in the montane rainforests. Since this habitat is constantly threatened by encroaching agriculture, the laurel forest animal and plant species have already become rare in many of its former habitats and are threatened by habitat loss.

The quetzal's favorite fruits are berries of relatives of Nectandra umbrosa. Their differing maturing times in the Cloud forest determine the migratory movements of the quetzals to differing elevation levels in the forests. With a gape width of 21 mm, the quetzal swallows the small berries (aquacatillos) whole, which he catches while flying through the lower canopy of the tree, and then regurgitates the seed within 100 meters from the tree. Wheelwright, in 1983, observed that parent quetzals take far fewer time intervals to deliver fruits to the young brood than insects or lizards, reflecting the ease of procuring fruits, as opposed to capturing animal prey. Since the young are fed exclusively berries in the first two weeks after hatching, these berries must be highly nutritional. Usually, only the total percentage of water, sugar, nitrogen, crude fats and carbohydrates are reported by ornithologists.[5]
Medical use

Plants from this genus have been used to treat several human clinical disorders. It has been demonstrated that Nectandra plants have potential for analgesic, anti-inflammatory, febrifuge, energetic, and hypotensive activities. Nectandra has also been investigated as a possible antitumoral agent, and the presence of neolignans suggests its potential use as a source of chemotherapeutics. Crude extracts of Nectandra contain alkaloids and lignans, berberine and sipirine.

Some authors have postulated that tannins play important roles as antioxidant compounds in scavenging free radicals. It is reported that an extract of N. salicifolia has potent relaxant activity on vascular smooth muscle. Researchers around the entire world agree that extensive pre-clinical studies on herbal medicine are important and urgent, especially high-quality clinical and pre-clinical trials.[3]

In pre-Columbian Peru the seeds, called amala in Spanish, were used as a muscle relaxant. In sites of the Sican culture, collections of the seeds have been associated with human sacrifice, and used to incapacitate victims prior to being killed.[6][7][8]
Selected species

Nectandra contains approximately 120 species,[1] including the following:

Nectandra angusta, Rohwer
Nectandra apiculata, Rohwer
Nectandra astyla, Rohwer
Nectandra aurea, Rohwer
Nectandra baccans, (Meissner) Mez
Nectandra barbellata, Coe-Teixeira
Nectandra bartlettiana, Lasser
Nectandra brittonii, Mez
Nectandra brochidodroma, Rohwer
Nectandra canaliculata, Rohwer
Nectandra caudatoacuminata, O. C. Schmidt
Nectandra cerifolia, Rohwer
Nectandra citrifolia, Rusby
Nectandra coeloclada, Rohwer
Nectandra cordata, Rohwer
Nectandra coriacea (Swartz) Grisebach
Nectandra crassiloba, Rohwer
Nectandra dasystyla, Rohwer
Nectandra debilis, Mez
Nectandra embirensis, Coe-Teixeira
Nectandra filiflora, Rohwer
Nectandra fragrans, Rohwer
Nectandra fulva, Rohwer
Nectandra gracilis, Rohwer
Nectandra grisea, Rohwer
Nectandra guadaripo, Rohwer
Nectandra herrerae, O. C. Schmidt
Nectandra heterotricha, Rohwer
Nectandra hirtella, Rohwer
Nectandra hypoleuca, Hammel
Nectandra impressa, Mez
Nectandra japurensis, Nees
Nectandra krugii, Mez
Nectandra latissima, Rohwer
Nectandra matogrossensis, Coe-Teixeira
Nectandra micranthera, Rohwer
Nectandra microcarpa, Meissner
Nectandra minima, Rohwer
Nectandra obtusata, Rohwer
Nectandra olida, Rohwer
Nectandra paranaensis, Coe-Teixeira
Nectandra parviflora, Rohwer
Nectandra psammophila, Nees
Nectandra pseudocotea, Allen & Barneby ex Rohwer
Nectandra pulchra, O. C. Schmidt
Nectandra ramonensis, Standley
Nectandra reflexa, Rohwer
Nectandra ruforamula, Rohwer
Nectandra sordida, Rohwer
Nectandra spicata, Meissner
Nectandra subbullata, Rohwer
Nectandra truxillensis, (Meissner) Mez
Nectandra turbacensis, (Kunth) Nees[9]
Nectandra utilis, Rohwer
Nectandra venulosa, Meissner
Nectandra warmingii, Meissner
Nectandra weddellii, Meissner
Nectandra wurdackii, C. K. Allen & Barneby ex Rohwer
Nectandra yarinensis, O. C. Schmidt

References

Henk van der Werff. "Nectandra Rottbøll". Flora of North America. www.efloras.org. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
NRCS. "Nectandra". PLANTS Database. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 18 July 2015.
Ramos Farías Moreno, Silvana; Arnobio, Adriano; Carvalho, Jorge José De; Nascimento, Lucia; Oliveira Timoteo, Margareth; Olej, Beni; Kazan Rocha, Emely; Pereira, Mario; Bernardo-Filho, Mario; Querino De Araújo Caldas, Luiz (2007). "The ingestion of a Nectandra membranacea extract changes the bioavailability of technetium-99m radiobiocomplex in rat organs". Biological Research. 40 (2): 131–135. doi:10.4067/S0716-97602007000200004 (inactive 1 November 2024). PMID 18064350.
"Manual dendrológico de las principales especies de interés comercial actual y potencial de la zona del Alto Huallaga" (PDF). cnf.org.pe (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 July 2023.
Phytochemistry of Nectandra umbrosa Berries, Cloudforest Food of the Resplendent Quetzal avocadosource.com
The Cursed Valley of the Pyramids, Season 1, Episode 2 of Lost Cities of the Ancients. Directed by Aidan Laverty. BBC.IMDB
"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-21. Retrieved 2015-06-30.
"Amala seed -The Entheogen Network".
de Kok, R. (2021). "Nectandra turbacensis". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2021: e.T143822730A143953306. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-1.RLTS.T143822730A143953306.en. Retrieved 17 November 2021.