Dried fruits of ''Lindera neesiana'' used as spice
(coll. MHNT) ''Lindera'' is a genus of about 80–1001. Lindera Thunberg
''

Flora of North America The ''Flora of North America North of Mexico'' (usually referred to as ''FNA'') is a multivolume work describing the native plants and naturalized plants of North America, including the United States, Canada, St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Greenla ...

'' 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 ...

s in the family

Lauraceae Lauraceae, or the laurels, is a plant Family (biology), family that includes the bay laurel, true laurel and its closest relatives. This family comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genus (biology), genera worldwide. They are dicotyled ...

, mostly native to eastern

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

but with three species in eastern

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

.5. Lindera Thunberg
''Flora of China'' The species are

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

s and small

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

s; common names include spicewood, spicebush, and Benjamin bush.

Name

The Latin name ''Lindera'' commemorates the Swedish doctor

Johan Linder Johans Linder (1678 - March 24, 1724) was a Swedish botanist and medical doctor who was later ennobled as Lindestolpe. He wrote a book about natural dyes and their sources including plants, insects, and minerals. He was born 1678 in Karlstad, S ...

(1676–1724).

Description

''Lindera'' are

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

trees or shrubs. The leaves are alternate, entire or three-lobed, and strongly spicy-aromatic. ''Lindera'' are

dioecious Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is ...

, with male and female flowers on separate trees. The inflorescences are composed of 3 to 15 small flowers existing as pseudo-umbels. They are sessile or on short shoots. The flowers are from greenish to white, greenish-yellow, or yellowish, with six tepals arranged in a star shape. The male flowers have 9 to 15 fertile stamens; the innermost circle of stamens can be found at the base of the stamen glands. Usually the stamens are longer than the anthers, which in turn consist of two chambers and are directed inwards or sideways. The vestigial ovary is negligible or absent. The base of the flower is small and flat. The female flowers have a varying number of staminodes.

Pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma (botany), stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, for example bees, beetles or bu ...

is done by

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

s and other

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s. ''Lindera'' fruit have a

hypocarpium This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary ...

at the base of the fruit, which in some cases forms a cup that encloses the bottom part of the fruit. The fruit is a small red, purple or black

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...

containing a single

seed In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...

, dispersed mostly by birds. Many species reproduce vegetatively by

stolon In biology, a stolon ( from Latin ''wikt:stolo, stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as a runner, is a horizontal connection between parts of an organism. It may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. Typically, animal ...

Ecology

The genus appears to be able to occupy widely different habitats as long as its requirements for water are met.

Habitat fragmentation Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological proces ...

severely affects dioecious species like ''

Lindera melissifolia ''Lindera melissifolia'', common name pondberry or southern spicebush, is a stoloniferous, deciduous, aromatic shrub in the Lauraceae, laurel family. This endangered species is native to the southeastern United States, and its demise is associat ...

'' (pondberry), because populations with plants of a single sex can only vegetatively reproduce. With significant habitat loss, plants become ever more isolated, lessening the likelihood that pollinators will travel from male to female plants. Most are found on the bottoms and edges of shallow seasonal ponds in old dune fields, but in drier areas they occur in low riverine habitat. Most ''Lindera'' colonies occur in light shade beneath a forest canopy, but a few grow in almost full sunlight. In warmer areas they occur in bottomland hardwood forests. The North American species of ''Lindera'' are relicts that originally were more common when the climate of North America was more humid, and they are not so widespread geographically as in the past. The

hermit thrush The hermit thrush (''Catharus guttatus'') is a medium-sized North American thrush. Taxonomy It is not very closely related to the other North American migrant species of ''Catharus'', but rather to the Mexican russet nightingale-thrush. T ...

has been identified as a dispersal agent of seeds of ''L. melissifolia''. ''Lindera'' species are used as food plants by the

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e of some

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

species, including

the engrailed The engrailed and small engrailed (''Ectropis crepuscularia'') are moths of the family Geometridae found from the British Isles through central and eastern Europe to the Russian Far East and Kazakhstan. The western Mediterranean and Asia Minor ...

and the spicebush swallowtail.

Selected species

Uses

The bark, twigs, and leaves of some species can be used to make tea. The berries have also sometimes been used. The young bark can be chewed to parch thirst. ''Lindera umbellata'' contains linderatin, methyllinderatin and linderachalcone which are structurally related to

cannabidiol Cannabidiol (CBD) is a phytocannabinoid, one of 113 identified cannabinoids in ''Cannabis'', along with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and accounts for up to 40% of the plant's extract. Medically, it is an anticonvulsant used to treat multiple f ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q311790 Lauraceae genera Dioecious plants