''Eleutherine bulbosa'' is an

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 In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

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 ...

species in the family

Iridaceae Iridaceae () is a family of plants in order Asparagales, taking its name from the Iris (plant), irises. It has a nearly global distribution, with 69 accepted genera with a total of about 2500 species. It includes a number of economically importan ...

. Among Spanish-speakers, the plant is known as ''lagrimas de la virgen'' ("tears of the virgin"). Like other '' Eleutherine'' species, ''E. bulbosa'' has a

bulb In botany, a bulb is a short underground stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs duri ...

ous rootstock; a large subapical cauline leaf; and small, white, stellate, evening-blooming

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s. ''E. bulbosa'' grows in southern Mexico and in the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

, within the borders of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, in addition to the

Brazilian states The federative units of Brazil () are subnational entities with a certain degree of autonomy (self-government, self-regulation, and self-collection) and endowed with their own government and constitution, which together form the Federative Repu ...

Amapá Amapá (; ) is one of the 26 federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil. It is in the North Region, Brazil, North Region of Brazil. It is Federative units of Brazil#List, the second-least populous state and the eighteenth-largest state by area ...

and

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

. It is widely cultivated for its medicinal properties. Like '' E. latifolia'', ''E. bulbosa'' has a basic chromosome number of ''x''=6 (''2n''=12); it also has a similar bimodal

karyotype A karyotype is the general appearance of the complete set of chromosomes in the cells of a species or in an individual organism, mainly including their sizes, numbers, and shapes. Karyotyping is the process by which a karyotype is discerned by de ...

, which is distinctive to this plant tribe (

Tigridieae Tigridieae is a tribe of plants in the subfamily Iridoideae and included in the family Iridaceae. It contains many perennials which have cormous rootstocks. The name of the tribe comes from its main genus - '' Tigridia''. The tribe is native to ...

); all other

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

of the tribe have ''x''=7. Usually, ''E. bulbosa'' has a heteromorphic long

chromosome A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes, the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with nucleosome-forming packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells, the most import ...

pair, the result of a pericentric inversion in one of the long chromosomes, which makes it sexually sterile. Rahenna described a

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

in 1965: ''E. bulbosa'' subsp. ''citriodora''.

References

External links

''Eleutherine bulbosa'' (Mill.) Urb
at the

Catalogue of Life The Catalogue of Life (CoL) is an online database that provides an index of known species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. It was created in 2001 as a partnership between the global Species 2000 and the American Integrated Taxono ...

. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
''Eleutherine bulbosa'' (Mill.) Urb
at the

National Center for Biotechnology Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is approved and funded by the government of the United States. The NCBI is lo ...

. Retrieved 25 June 2013. {{Taxonbar, from=Q15044077 Iridaceae Flora of the Amazon Flora of Bolivia Flora of Brazil Flora of Ecuador Flora of French Guiana Flora of Guyana Flora of Mexico Flora of Peru Flora of Suriname Medicinal plants of South America Plants described in 1918