''Centipeda'' is a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s in the daisy family,

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

. The genus is primarily native to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, with a few species extending the range northward into Asia and across the Pacific to southern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Species

Research and biological activities

Volatile oils An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing Volatility (chemistry), volatile (easily evaporated at normal temperatures) chemical compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils, aetherol ...

from ''

Centipeda minima ''Centipeda'' is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family, Asteraceae. The genus is primarily native to Australia and New Zealand, with a few species extending the range northward into Asia and across the Pacific to southern South America. ...

'' have been shown to modulate

anti-inflammatory Anti-inflammatory is the property of a substance or treatment that reduces inflammation or swelling. Anti-inflammatory drugs, also called anti-inflammatories, make up about half of analgesics. These drugs remedy pain by reducing inflammation as o ...

action by inhibiting inflammatory

cytokine Cytokines are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are peptides and cannot cross the lipid bilayer of cells to enter the cytoplasm. Cytokines have been shown to be involved in autocrin ...

s in a rat model. In a related study, ''C. minima'' eased

allergic rhinitis Allergic rhinitis, of which the seasonal type is called hay fever, is a type of inflammation in the nose that occurs when the immune system overreacts to allergens in the air. Signs and symptoms include a runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, red, i ...

by slowing the infiltration of

eosinophil Eosinophils, sometimes called eosinophiles or, less commonly, acidophils, are a variety of white blood cells (WBCs) and one of the immune system components responsible for combating multicellular parasites and certain infections in vertebrates. A ...

s and the proliferation of

mast cell A mast cell (also known as a mastocyte or a labrocyte) is a resident cell of connective tissue that contains many granules rich in histamine and heparin. Specifically, it is a type of granulocyte derived from the myeloid stem cell that is a par ...

s. A comprehensive investigation of the GC-MS chemical profile of '' C. cunninghamii'' and its biological activity showed that this species' extract contains novel compounds that possess anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Phylogeny

In 2012, Nylinder et al. published an estimation of the species tree

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...

of the Australian/New Zealand genus ''Centipeda'' (

) based on nucleotide sequence data. ''Centipeda racemosa'' (snuffweed) is the sister to remaining species, which is also the only consistently perennial representative in the genus. ''Centipeda pleiocephala'' (tall sneezeweed) and ''C. nidiformis'' (cotton sneezeweed) constitute a species pair, as does ''C. borealis'' and ''C. minima'' (spreading sneezeweed), all sharing the symplesiomorphic characters of spherical capitulum and convex receptacle with ''C. racemosa''. Another species group comprising ''C. thespidioides'' (desert sneezeweed),

Centipeda cunninghamii ''Centipeda cunninghamii'' is a species of flowering plant in the Asteraceae family. It is referred to by the common names old man weed, being the literal translation of its Koori name gukwonderuk, common sneezeweed and scent weed which were give ...

(old man weed, or common sneezeweed), ''C. crateriformis'' is well supported but then include the morphologically aberrant ''C. aotearoana'', all sharing the character of having capitula that mature more slowly relative the subtending shoot. ''Centipeda elatinoides'' takes on a weakly supported intermediate position between the two mentioned groups, and is difficult to relate to any of the former groups based on morphological characters.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2698575 Asteraceae genera Athroismeae Plants used in traditional Chinese medicine Taxa named by João de Loureiro