''Arachis villosulicarpa'' is a
perennial
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...
peanut species, which is cultivated by indigenous people in
Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 1.9% of the Brazilian GDP.
Neighboring ...
, a state of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
.
Its wild progenitor is thought to be ''
Arachis pietrarellii''.
Although it is related to the common peanut, ''
Arachis hypogaea
The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as ...
'', it was separately domesticated: ''A. villosulicarpa'' is diploid,
whereas ''A. hypogaea'' is
tetraploid
Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contains ...
.
It is one of several species that might be used as
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
source for
plant breeding
Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce cro ...
to improve the important cultivated peanut ''Arachis hypogaea''.
References
External links
International Legume Database & Information Service: ''Arachis villosulicarpa''*
USDA Plants Profile: ''Arachis villosulicarpa''EMBRAPA: ''Arachis villosulicarpa''
villosulicarpa
Flora of Brazil
{{Dalbergieae-stub