Petiveria alliacea L.

• Title

  Petiveria alliacea L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Petiveria alliacea L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Petiveria alliacea Anamu Garlic-weed Family Phytolaccaceae Pokeweed Family Petiveria alliacea Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 342. 1753. The multifarious odors of plants, or of their roots, flowers or fruits, are caused by volatile oils, and other substances, formed in their life-processes, and are sometimes regarded as waste-products for which they have no further use. The herbaceous plant here illustrated smells much like garlic; the volatile substance giving the odors is probably of different chemical composition, however; it has wide distribution in tropical America, ranging north into Florida and Mexico, is common in thickets, and in waste and cultivated grounds at lower elevations in Porto Rico, on Vieques Island, and has been observed on Mona. Other English popular names are Gully-root, Conga-root and Guinea-hen Weed. Petiveria is a specialized monotypic genus, dedicated by Linnaeus to Jacob Petiver, an English naturalist and apothecary, who died in 1718. Petiveria alliacea (like garlic) is a slender, upright, branched herb, from 0.3 to 1 meter high, smooth, or the upper part finely hairy. The broad, thin, alternate, untoothed leaves are from 3 to 12 centimeters long, short-stalked and pointed. The small, greenish, bracted flowers form slender clusters from 10 to 40 centimeters long, the individual, ones very short-stalked; the calyx is 4-parted, its narrowly lance-shaped segments only about 4 millimeters long; there are no petals; the 4 to 8 stamens have awl-shaped filaments, the narrow anthers 2-cleft at each end; the flattened, oblong, velvety ovary is 1-celled, containing 1 ovule, and bears from 1 to 6 deflexed bristles; the style is short, the stigma penicellate. The fruit (an achene) is narrowly wedge-shaped, about 6 millimeters long, flat, keeled on both sides, 2-lobed at the apex, appressed, the terminal, reflexed bristles about 2 millimeters long.