Dried fruits of ''Lindera neesiana'' used as spice
(coll. MHNT) ''Lindera'' is a genus of about 80–1001. Lindera Thunberg
''

Flora of North America The ''Flora of North America North of Mexico'' (usually referred to as ''FNA'') is a multivolume work describing the native plants and naturalized plants of North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and a ...

'' species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of ...

s in the family

Lauraceae Lauraceae, or the laurels, is a plant family that includes the true laurel and its closest relatives. This family comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genera worldwide (Christenhusz & Byng 2016 ). They are dicotyledons, and occur m ...

, mostly native to eastern

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

but with three species in eastern North America.5. Lindera Thunberg
''Flora of China'' The species are shrubs and small

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s; common names include spicewood, spicebush, and Benjamin bush.

Name

The Latin name ''Lindera'' commemorates the Swedish botanist Johan Linder (1676-1724).

Description

''Lindera'' are

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

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, a ...

trees or shrubs. The leaves are alternate, entire or three-lobed, and strongly spicy-aromatic. ''Lindera'' are

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproducti ...

, with male and female flowers on separate trees. The inflorescences are composed of 3 to 15 small flowers existing as pseudo-umbels. They are sessile or on short shoots. The flowers are from greenish to white, greenish-yellow, or yellowish, with six tepals arranged in a star shape. The male flowers have 9 to 15 fertile stamens; the innermost circle of stamens can be found at the base of the stamen glands. Usually the stamens are longer than the anthers, which in turn consist of two chambers and are directed inwards or sideways. The vestigial ovary is negligible or absent. The base of the flower is small and flat. The female flowers have a varying number of staminodes.

Pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds ...

is done by

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...

s and other

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 pairs ...

s. ''Lindera'' fruit have a hypocarpium at the base of the fruit, which in some cases forms a cup that encloses the bottom part of the fruit. The fruit is a small red, purple or black

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part ( exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kerne ...

containing a single

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosper ...

, dispersed mostly by birds. Many species reproduce vegetatively by

stolon In biology, stolons (from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external ...

Ecology

The genus appears to be able to occupy widely different habitats as long as its requirements for water are met.

Habitat fragmentation Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological proces ...

severely affects dioecious species like '' Lindera melissifolia'' (pondberry), because populations with plants of a single sex can only vegetatively reproduce. With significant habitat loss, plants become ever more isolated, lessening the likelihood that pollinators will travel from male to female plants. Most are found on the bottoms and edges of shallow seasonal ponds in old dune fields, but in drier areas they occur in low riverine habitat. Most ''Lindera'' colonies occur in light shade beneath a forest canopy, but a few grow in almost full sunlight. In warmer areas they occur in bottomland hardwood forests. The North American species of ''Lindera'' are relicts that originally were more common when the climate of North America was more humid and they are not so widespread geographically as in the past. The

hermit thrush The hermit thrush (''Catharus guttatus'') is a medium-sized North American thrush. It is not very closely related to the other North American migrant species of ''Catharus'', but rather to the Mexican russet nightingale-thrush. The specific na ...

has been identified as a dispersal agent of seeds of ''L. melissifolia''.Smith, Carl G., III; Hamel, Paul B.; Devall, Margaret S.; Schiff, Natan M. 2004. Hermit thrush is the first observed dispersal agent for pondberry (''Lindera melissifolia''). Castanea 69(1):1-8.
/ref> ''Lindera'' species are used as food plants by 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. Th ...

e of some Lepidoptera species including the engrailed and the spicebush swallowtail.

Selected species

Uses

The bark, twigs, and leaves of some species can be used to make tea. The berries have also sometimes been used. The young bark can be chewed to parch thirst.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q311790 Lauraceae genera Dioecious plants