''Aristolochia californica'', the California pipevine, California Dutchman's-pipe, or California snakeroot is a perennial woody vine of western North America.Calflora: ''Aristolochia californica''
/ref>

Distribution and habitat

The vine is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to northern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

.Jepson eFlora (TJM2) ''Aristolochia californica''
/ref> It is native to the Sacramento Valley, northern Sierra Nevada foothills,

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, Northern Inner

California Coast Ranges The Coast Ranges of California span from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains. P ...

, southeastern

Klamath Mountains The Klamath Mountains are a rugged and lightly populated mountain range in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the western United States. As a mountain system within both the greater Pacific Coast Ranges and the California Coast ...

. The plant grows along

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

streambank areas, in chaparral,

oak woodland An oak woodland is a plant community with a tree canopy dominated by oaks (''Quercus spp.''). In terms of canopy closure, oak woodlands are intermediate between oak savanna, which is more open, and oak forest, which is more closed. Although the ...

, and mixed evergreen forest habitats. It is found below in elevation.

Description

''Aristolochia californica'' is a

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 leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

vine A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...

. It grows from rhizomes, to a length usually around , but can reach over . The twining trunk can become quite thick in circumference at maturity. It sends out new green heart-shaped leaves after it blooms. The bloom period is January through April. The plant produces large green to pale brown curving pipe-shaped flowers, with purple veins and a yellow to red lining. The U shaped flowers produce winged capsular green fruits.

Pollination

The California pipevine's flowers have a musty

unpleasant odor An odor (American English) or odour (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is caused by one or more volatilized chemical compounds that are generally found in low concentrations that humans and animals can perceive via their sense ...

which is attractive to tiny carrion-feeding

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s. The insects crawl into the convoluted flowers and often become stuck and disoriented for some time, picking up pollen as they wander. Most eventually escape. The plant is not insectivorous, as was formerly thought. Fungus gnats (Mycetophilidae) may prove to be the effective pollinators. G.L. Stebbins suggested that pollination by deceit is presumed.

Chemistry

Chemical composition - aristolochic acid

Like the other members of the family

Aristolochiaceae The Aristolochiaceae () are a family, the birthwort family, of flowering plants with seven genera and about 400 known species belonging to the order Piperales. The type genus is ''Aristolochia'' L. Description They are mostly perennial, he ...

, ''A. californica'' is highly toxic, producing a group of secondary metabolites known as aristolochic acids. Aristolochic acids are compounds that are composed of nitrophenanthrene carboxylic acids that have been utilized for medicinal purposes, being used in Chinese herbal medicines and usually included as a part of some weight-loss regimens. However, due to several warnings of the toxic effects of aristolochic acids by the US

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

and regulatory authorities of other countries, the sale and usage of aristolochic acids in medicine has been banned in multiple countries. The reasoning for this is that aristolochic acids act as a

carcinogen A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive subs ...

and a

nephrotoxin Nephrotoxicity is toxicity in the kidneys. It is a poisonous effect of some substances, both toxic chemicals and medications, on kidney function. There are various forms, and some drugs may affect kidney function in more than one way. Nephrotoxin ...

, inducing urothelial cancers and kidney failure. It has also been found that it may even act as a mutagen.

California Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly

The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. ...

of the endemic California pipevine swallowtail butterfly (''Battus philenor hirsuta'') relies on the California pipevine as its only food source. The red-spotted black caterpillars consume the leaves of the plants, and then use the flowers as a secure, enclosed place to undergo metamorphosis. The plant contains a toxin which when ingested by the caterpillars makes them unpalatable to

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

s. Due to their unpalatability from the sequestered aristolochic acids from

spp., there are several known species of butterflies that use ''

Battus philenor ''Battus philenor'', the pipevine swallowtail or blue swallowtail, Retrieved April 19, 2018. is a swallowtail butterfly found in North America and Central America. This butterfly is black with iridescent-blue hindwings. They are found in many d ...

,'' as an overall species, as a model for Batesian mimicry, including ''Papilio troilus'' L., the darker female morph of ''Papilio glaucus'' L., and ''

Papilio polyxenes ''Papilio polyxenes'', the (eastern) black swallowtail, American swallowtail or parsnip swallowtail, is a butterfly found throughout much of North America. It is the state butterfly of Oklahoma and New Jersey. An extremely similar-appearing spec ...

''. However, there are no known species that mimic '' Battus philenor hirsuta'' specifically in the Northern California region. The female butterflies tend to lay their eggs as clutches on an individual plant, preferring to lay only one clutch per plant to ensure that the induced defenses of ''A. californica'' do not negatively affect a second clutch of offspring and so that they do not compete with one another. Having one clutch that feeds on the same plant at the same time allows for a larger number of larvae to feed on the plant while the defenses are lower. It has been found that these clutches of caterpillars take part in aggregative feeding as to manipulate the type and/or size of the plant's induced defense in response to herbivory.

References

External links

Calflora Database: ''Aristolochia californica'' (California pipevine, California Dutchman's pipe)Jepson eFlora treatment of ''Aristolochia californica''UC CalPhotos gallery of California Dutchman's pipevine
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2133273 californica Endemic flora of California Flora of the Klamath Mountains Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Natural history of the California Coast Ranges Natural history of the Central Valley (California) Natural history of the San Francisco Bay Area Vines Butterfly food plants Garden plants of North America Drought-tolerant plants