Actaea racemosa

Actaea racemosa (black cohosh, black bugbane or black snakeroot or fairy candle; syn. Cimicifuga racemosa) is a plant of the family Ranunculaceae. It is native to eastern North America from the extreme south of Ontario south to central Georgia, and west to Missouri and Arkansas.

The plant grows in a variety of woodland habitats, and is often found in small woodland openings. The roots and rhizomes of black cohosh have long been used medicinally by Native Americans.

Extracts from these plant materials are thought to possess analgesic, sedative, and anti-inflammatory properties. Today, black cohosh preparations (tinctures or tablets of dried materials) are used chiefly to treat symptoms associated with menopause.

Black cohosh is a smooth (glabrous), herbaceous perennial plant that produces large, compound leaves from an underground rhizome, reaching a height of 25–60 centimetres (9.8–24 in). The basal leaves are up to 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) long and broad, forming repeated sets of three leaflets (tripinnately compound) having a coarsely toothed (serrated) margin.

The flowers are produced in late spring and early summer on a tall stem, 75–250 centimetres (30–98 in) tall, forming racemes up to 50 centimetres (20 in) long. The flowers have no petals or sepals, and consist of tight clusters of 55-110 white, 5-10 mm long stamens surrounding a white stigma.

The flowers have a distinctly sweet, fetid smell that attracts flies, gnats, and beetles. The fruit is a dry follicle 5-10 mm long, with one carpel, containing several seeds.

The plant species has a history of taxonomic uncertainty dating back to Carl Linnaeus, who—based on morphological characteristics of the inflorescence and seeds—had placed the species into the genus, Actaea.

This designation was later revised by Thomas Nuttall reclassifying the species to the genus, Cimicifuga. Nuttall's classification was based solely on the dry follicles produced by black cohosh, which are typical of species in Cimicifuga.

However, recent data from morphological and gene phylogeny analyses demonstrate that black cohosh is more closely related to species of the genus Actaea than to other Cimicifuga species.

This has prompted the revision to Actaea racemosa as originally proposed by Linnaeus. Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), despite its similar common name, is a plant of another genus and not closely related to black cohosh.




Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actaea_racemosa



See Also: toko bunga, bunga papan, beli bunga, flowers auckland