''Houttuynia'' is a genus of two species in the
Saururaceae native to
Southeast Asia. One species, ''
H. cordata'', is widely cultivated as a culinary herb. The genus was originally described in 1783 by
Carl Peter Thunberg
Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Swedish naturalist and an "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus. After studying under Linnaeus at Uppsala Un ...
when he formally described
''H. cordata'' as the only species. It remained a
monotypic genus until 2001 when Zheng Yin Zhu and Shi Liang Zhang discovered and described a second species native to China, ''
H. emeiensis'' but the validity still unestablished.
[Wu Wei, Zheng Youliang, Chen Li, Wei Yuming, Yan Zehong, and Yang Ruiwu. 2005]
PCR-RFLP analysis of cpDNA and mtDNA in the genus ''Houttuynia'' in some areas of China.
''Hereditas'' 142: 24-32. It was named after
Martinus Houttuyn.
References
Piperales genera
Saururaceae
{{Piperales-stub
