''Agrimonia procera'', the fragrant agrimony, is a species of

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 ...

belonging to the family

Rosaceae Rosaceae (), the rose family, is a family of flowering plants that includes 4,828 known species in 91 genera. The name is derived from the type genus '' Rosa''. The family includes herbs, shrubs, and trees. Most species are deciduous, but som ...

. It is native to Europe and Southern Africa.

Description

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

perennial plant In horticulture, the term perennial (''wikt:per-#Prefix, per-'' + ''wikt:-ennial#Suffix, -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annual plant, annuals and biennial plant, biennials. It has thus been d ...

which grows to about 1 m tall, with a branched or unbranched green stem covered in

glandular A gland is a cell or an organ in an animal's body that produces and secretes different substances that the organism needs, either into the bloodstream or into a body cavity or outer surface. A gland may also function to remove unwanted substance ...

hairs which are 2 mm long or slightly longer. The leaves are

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and ...

with 3-6 pairs of oval, distinctly serrated primary leaflets, an irregular number of secondary leaflets, and a similar or slightly larger terminal leaflet. The underside of the leaves are studded with yellow, shiny glands which produce a sweet aroma. Flowers are arranged in long

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

s at the top of the stem(s). Each flower has 5 yellow

petal Petals are modified leaves that form an inner whorl surrounding the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly coloured or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''corol ...

s, 5-20

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s and 2

carpels Gynoecium (; ; : gynoecia) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ...

. The

hypanthium In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the Sepal, calyx, the petal, corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and cal ...

develops into a characteristic brown, oval or bell-shaped fruit with deep lateral grooves and a double ring of hooked bristles around its centre, which contains 1 or 2

achene An achene (; ), also sometimes called akene and occasionally achenium or achenocarp, is a type of simple fruit, simple dry fruits, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate (formed from one carpel) and Dehi ...

s. It is easy to confuse fragrant agrimony with common agrimony, which has a similar distribution and habitat. The key differences are that fragrant agrimony has longer hairs (and no short hairs) on the stem, leaves that are more deeply and acutely serrated and with more glands on the underside, and fruits with shorter grooves and reflexed bristles. These hooked bristles are the most useful feature to use when it is not possible to compare the two species side-by-side: if you imagine they emerge from the fruit's "equator", then most of the bristles point "southwards" or at most straight out in common agrimony, but in fragrant agrimony some distinctly point "northwards" (towards the stalk). file:Agrimonia procera fruit.jpg, A mature fruit of fragrant agrimony File:Agrimonia eupatoria Rzepik pospolity 2020-12-30 04.jpg, Fruits of common agrimony, for comparison

Ecology

The habitat of fragrant agrimony in Britain and Ireland is woodland margin, scrub, road verges and tall grassland, on circumneutral (neither acid nor alkaline), sometimes damp, soils. It is confined to the lowlands, being known only up to 335 m at Fortingall, in Perthshire. It is a bigger, bushier and more leafy plant than common agrimony and is far less common, although its overall range is similar. It is most abundant along rides in

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

or sometimes

ash Ash is the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash is the ...

woods, or in field edges nearby. It flowers rather later than common agrimony, typically from late July in southern England. Little is known about the interactions between fragrant agrimony and other species. The British database of insects and their food plants lists only one aphid, ''

Acyrthosiphon ''Acyrthosiphon'' is a genus of aphids belonging to the family Aphididae. The genus was described in 1914 by Alexander Mordvilko. The genus has cosmopolitan distribution. Species These species belong to the genus ''Acyrthosiphon'': * '' Acyr ...

malvae'' (Mosley, 1841) that has been observed on this plant. The hooked seeds are ideal for facilitating dispersal by animals, but which are primarily involved is not known.

Distribution

The native distribution of fragrant agrimony is thought to include almost all of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, but none of the territory between. This strikingly

disjunct distribution In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a s ...

is highly unusual and could be due to transportation of the seeds by migrating wild birds or a more recent introduction by humans. In South Africa, however, it is considered native and is officially categorised as "least concern", although some sources, such as the citizen science website iNaturalist, describe it as invasive there.

Uses

Fragrant agrimony is palatable to livestock and occurs in grazed woodland, meadows and pastures. Like other species of agrimony, it is reported to have beneficial effects on the health of experimental animals and to reduce inflammation in cells ''in vitro''. Chemicals under investigation include the bitter-tasting compound agrimoniin and various flavonoids. Despite having a bitter taste, agrimony is popular in

herbal tea Herbal teas, technically known as herbal infusions, and less commonly called tisanes (UK and US , US also ), are beverages made from the infusion or decoction of herbs, spices, or other plant material in hot water. Often herb tea, or the plai ...

s and is often touted as having health benefits in humans, although medical sources stress that evidence about efficacy and safety is generally lacking. Claims about its use in the past may be exaggerated: the Roman author

Celsus Celsus (; , ''Kélsos''; ) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity. His literary work '' The True Word'' (also ''Account'', ''Doctrine'' or ''Discourse''; Greek: )Hoffmann p.29 survives exclusively via quotati ...

, who was influential in medicine for over a thousand years, only mentions agrimony as a possible cure for snake bites. Most advertisements for herbal teas specify common rather than fragrant agrimony, but it is not always clear that people have differentiated between the two.

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q953646

procera Procera is a hypothetical clade of amphibians that includes salamanders and caecilians but not frogs. A close relationship between salamanders and caecilians is a competing hypothesis to the more widely supported view that salamanders and frogs a ...

Taxa named by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wallroth