''Thalia geniculata'', the bent alligator-flag, arrowroot, or fire-flag, is a plant species widespread across tropical Africa and much of the Americas. ''Thalia geniculata'' is native to a large region in Africa, from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east, south to Zimbabwe and Angola. It is also considered native to Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, most of South America, as well as the southeastern United States (

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

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and southern Georgia).

Ecology

The larvae of ''

Stolidoptera tachasara ''Stolidoptera tachasara'' is a moth of the family Sphingidae first described by Herbert Druce in 1888. Distribution It is found in Mexico and Central America, as well as Venezuela in northern South America. It has also been spotted in Bolivia ...

'', ''

Xylophanes hannemanni ''Xylophanes hannemanni'' is a moth of the family Sphingidae. It is known from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama and further south through Ecuador to Peru and Bolivia. The wingspan is 68–83 mm. It is similar to ''Xyloph ...

'' and ''

Sphenarches anisodactylus The geranium plume moth (''Sphenarches anisodactylus'') is a moth of the family Pterophoridae. It is found in western Africa, Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, the New Hebrides and Central and South America, as well as Australia, whe ...

'' have been recorded feeding on ''Thalia geniculata''. The Thalia geniculata was also use to investigate the sugar-feeding behavior of Anopheles quadrimaculatus by measuring the impact and its survival(7)

Chemistry

Rosmarinic acid can be found in plants in the family Marantaceae such as ''Thalia geniculata''.Occurrence of rosmarinic acid, chlorogenic acid and rutin in Marantaceae species. Yana Abdullah, Bernd Schneider and Maike Petersen, Phytochemistry Letters, 12 December 2008, Volume 1, Issue 4, Pages 199–203,

References

geniculata Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora of Mexico Flora of the Southeastern United States Flora of South America Flora of Africa Edible plants {{Zingiberales-stub