''Amphilophium crucigerum'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

in the family

Bignoniaceae Bignoniaceae () is a Family (biology), family of flowering plants in the Order (biology), order Lamiales commonly known as the bignonias or trumpet vines.Vernon H. Heywood, Richard K. Brummitt, Ole Seberg, and Alastair Culham. ''Flowering Plant ...

, native from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

through Central America into South America as far south as

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. It was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

(as ''Bignonia crucigera'') in 1753. The

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

''Pithecoctenium crucigerum'' has often been used. The species has become an invasive weed in Australia. Chemical investigation of

methanol Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical compound and the simplest aliphatic Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with the chemical formula (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often ab ...

extracted from this species yielded the

iridoid Iridoids are a type of monoterpenoids in the general form of cyclopentanopyran, found in a wide variety of plants and some animals. They are biosynthetically derived from 8-oxogeranial. Iridoids are typically found in plants as glycosides, mo ...

glycoside In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. ...

theviridoside along with five

phenylethanoid Phenylethanoids are a type of phenolic compounds characterized by a phenethyl alcohol structure. Tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol are examples of such compounds. Glycosides The red deadnettle (''Lamium purpureum'') contains phenylethanoid glycosides ...

glycosides (

verbascoside Verbascoside is a polyphenol glycoside in which the phenylpropanoid caffeic acid and the phenylethanoid hydroxytyrosol form an ester and an ether bond respectively, to the rhamnose part of a disaccharide, namely β-(3′,4′-dihydroxyphenyl)ethyl ...

, isoverbascoside,

forsythoside B Forsythoside B is a natural product from the phenylpropanoid/polyphenolic glycoside group, which is found in a number of plant species in the mint order such as ''Marrubium alysson'', ''Phlomis armeniaca'', '' Scutellaria salviifolia'', ''Phlomo ...

, jionoside D and leucosceptoside B), these last all active against

DPPH DPPH is a common abbreviation for the organic chemical compound 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl. It is a dark-colored crystalline powder composed of stable Radical (chemistry), free radical molecules. DPPH has two major applications, both in laborat ...

References

Bignoniaceae Flora of Mexico Flora of Central America Flora of Southern America Plants described in 1753 {{Bignoniaceae-stub