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Yerba Buena (Clinopodium douglasii)
Genus Clinopodium Family Lamiaceae Order Lamiales Class Magnoliopsida Phylum Tracheophyta Kingdom Plantae Biodiversity

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Clinopodium douglasii
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Lamiales
Family: Lamiaceae
Genus: Clinopodium
Species:
C. douglasii
Binomial name
Clinopodium douglasii
(Benth.) Kuntze (1891)
Synonyms[3]
  • Thymus douglasii Benth.(basionym)
  • Thymus chamissonis Benth.
  • Micromeria douglasii Benth.
  • Micromeria barbata Fisch. & C.A.Mey.
  • Micromeria chamissonis (Benth.) Greene
  • Satureja douglasii (Benth.) Briq.
  • "Satureja chamissonis" (Benth.) Epling & Játiva[1] (nom. inval.)
  • "Hesperothymus douglasii" (Benth) A. Doroszenko[2] (nom. inval.)

Clinopodium douglasii, (synonym Micromeria douglasii),[3] yerba buena,[4] or Oregon tea[5] is a rambling aromatic herb of western and northwestern North America, ranging from British Columbia southwards to Southern California and from the Pacific coast eastwards to western Montana.[6][7] The plant takes the form of a sprawling, mat-forming perennial.[8] The name "yerba buena" derives from Spanish for "good herb" and is applied to various other plants.

Description

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Leaves and flowers of Clinopodium douglasii.

Clinopodium douglasii is a decumbent perennial herb. Leaves are in an opposite arrangement along the stem, and each leaf is subtended by a petiole, is relatively small in size, and ovate to almost triangular in shape, with the leaf margin being shallowly toothed. Flowers occur at the leaf axils, and are solitary (occasionally a cluster of 2-3 flowers) on a short pedicel. The flower consists of a tubular calyx that subtends a lobed, bilaterally symmetrical, labiate corolla typical of the mint family, white to lavender in color, and typically 3-8 millimeters in length. The inner flower, found under the upper "lip" of the corolla, consists of 2 fused styles with a 2-lobed stigma and 4 exserted stamens arranged in 2 pairs. The fruit is a tiny nutlet with a smooth surface.[4] The leaves and other parts of the plant are strongly aromatic and have a minty odor.[8]

History

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Clinopodium douglasii was widely used by the indigenous peoples of California and the Pacific Northwest Coast, generally in the form of a tea, both as a medicine and as a beverage. Ethnobotanical records of use of the plant are recorded among many indigenous peoples ranging from the Saanich of British Columbia to the Kumeyaay of southern California.[9][10][11] Later Spanish- and English-speaking settlers learned of the uses of this plant from native peoples and incorporated it into their own folk medicine traditions.[12][13] Spanish missionaries gave the name yerba buena or hierba buena (good herb) to the plant,[12][14] a Spanish common name for spearmint and other edible mints.

The herb has had a long association with the history of San Francisco. In 1776, Pedro Font, the Franciscan chaplain of the de Anza Expedition, noted the abundance of hierba buena around the expedition's encampment at Mountain Lake, near to the Presidio of San Francisco, for which the expedition was tasked with finding a site.[14] In the Spanish and Mexican eras of San Francisco, the undeveloped northwestern corner of San Francisco, where the plant was abundant, was given the name El Paraje de Yerba Buena (Place of the Yerba Buena). The area included Yerba Buena Cove, a favored anchorage, and the name was later extended to the Isla de la Yerba Buena (Yerba Buena Island), which faced the cove. In 1835, the civilian pueblo of Yerba Buena was founded on the shores of the cove, which would later grow into the American city of San Francisco.[15][16] "Yerba Buena" is still used for many place names in the San Francisco area.

Taxonomy

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Early collections and type specimen

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Type specimen of Micromeria douglasii (K000910684, right), collected by David Douglas in 1825, on shared herbarium sheet with non-type specimen (left) of the same species. Kew Herbarium.

In 1816, the Rurik expedition visited San Francisco and its chief botanist, Adelbert von Chamisso, made the first scientific collections of this species.[17] These botanical specimens were eventually sent to George Bentham, a botanist specializing in the mint family, for botanical diagnosis.[18] Bentham examined these specimens for his initial publication of this species and in latter work on this species, also examined collections made by Archibald Menzies, David Douglas, and John Scouler, among others.[19][20] By the 20th Century, the initial collections made by von Chamisso were lost, and in 1927 Carl Epling selected an early collection made by David Douglas in 1825 at Cape Disappointment, near the mouth of the Columbia River, as the neotype specimen. This type specimen is currently deposited in Kew Herbarium.[21]

19th and 20th Centuries

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George Bentham examined von Chamisso's 1816 collections from San Francisco and made the first publication of the species name in 1831, initially recognizing the samples as belonging to two related but different species, Thymus Chamissonis (named for von Chamisso) and Thymus Douglasii (named in honor of David Douglas).[18][Note 1] In 1834, Bentham transferred the species from Thymus to Micromeria and merged the two species under the name Micromeria Douglassii.[19] Bentham had initially separated the two based on small differences in leaf shape and position, but after examining more specimens, decided that what he had called Thymus Chamissonis was simply an ecotypic variation caused by growing in a more open environment than the specimen of Thymus Douglasii that he'd first examined.[18][19] In 1842, Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer and Carl Anton von Meyer described a collection of yerba buena made at Fort Ross as a separate species, Micromeria barbata, based on the hairy inner surface of the corolla tube.[22] This differentiation has not been generally accepted by later authors, who regard it as a synonym of Micromeria or Clinopodium douglasii.[20][23][24]

When Bentham transferred this species to Micromeria, he placed it in a newly described section, Micromeria sect. Hesperothymus, alongside other species such as Micromeria Brownei, based largely on the arrangement of flowers (mostly solitary pedicellate flowers found at the leaf axils), as well as the presence of more or less dentate leaf margins and the often prostrate, spreading habit of the plant overall.[19][20] The subgeneric classification of this species in sect. Hesperothymus was adhered to by botanical authors through the 19th and 20th Centuries, however, the generic classification of sect. Hesperothymus varied considerably between authors, leading to this species being placed in a number of genera over its history.[2] In the 1890s, Otto Kuntze[25] and John Isaac Briquet[26] argued that many of Bentham's mint family genera were poorly defined and pursued a lumping classification strategy, with Kuntze placing all sections of Micromeria within Clinopodium and Briquet placing them in Satureja. While Kuntze argued that the name Clinopodium had priority due to its use by pre-Linnean authors, Briquet's classification system proved more popular with later taxonomists.[2]

For the next century following Briquet's publication, the names Micromeria douglasii, Micromeria chamissonis,[23][27] and Satureja douglasii[28] were all in use by various botanical authors. Usage depended on whether the author accepted Bentham's concept of the genus Micromeria or Briquet's broader concept of Satureja,[2][29] and also on some disagreement as to whether the species epithet chamissonis or douglasii took priority, as both names had been found in the original publication of this species. New discoveries of Lamiaceae species through the 20th Century that did not fit well into Bentham's generic concepts led to more plant taxonomists (particularly in North America) embracing the broader genus concept of Satureja by the latter half of the 20th Century, and use of the name Satureja douglasii for this species overwhelmingly predominated in field guides and regional floras as a result.[2]

Molecular phylogenetic work and current status

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Beginning in the 1990s, the growth of molecular phylogenetics led to the findings that existing concepts of Satureja and Micromeria were polyphyletic and led to more circumscribed monophyletic definitions of these genera.[29] In 1995, Philip D. Cantino and Steven J. Wagstaff, carried out the first molecular phylogenetic tree that included this species, based on a restriction site analysis. They concluded that Calamintha and a number of New World Mentheae genera and species, including then-Satureja douglasii, formed a distinct clade separate from Satureja sensu stricto (represented by Satureja montana) and from Micromeria.[30] In 1998, they recommended use of Clinopodium as a synonym for Calamintha and that the former was the older name that took priority, and that species of sect. Hesperothymus also be transferred to a new, broadly-defined genus Clinopodium, specifically listing Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze as the preferred name for this species.[31] This concept of Clinopodium was endorsed in later synoptical works on the family Lamiaceae and the genus Micromeria published in the 2000s.[24][32]

In 2010, Christian Bräuchler and coauthors published a large scale molecular phylogenetic analysis of the subtribe Menthinae based on DNA sequencing of both nuclear ITS and several regions of chloroplast DNA. The resulting phylogeny showed strong support for three distinct clades within the Menthinae: Satureja, Micromeria, and a "Clinopodium group" that included a "New World" subgroup that in turn included Clinopodium douglasii along with a number of other New World species, variously under the name Clinopodium and the names of 22 other genera. The relationship of C. douglasii to other members of the New World group was not well-resolved in this analysis. The polyphyletic nature of Clinopodium was acknowledged, but no further name changes were recommended until systematic nomenclatural work was carried out on this complex group.[33]

In the 2010s, further molecular phylogenetic work on the subtribe Menthinae by Bryan T. Drew and Kenneth J. Sytsma using various chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequences more clearly resolved the cladistic structure of this group and the relationships of Clinopodium douglasii. The New World group (including C. douglasii) was again shown to be a sister clade to Clinopodium sensu strictu, and the two in turn formed a sister clade to Mentha. The Mentha/Clinopodium/New World clade formed one of the two basic clades of Menthinae, with the other clade including Micromeria, Satureja, and Thymus, among other genera. Within the New World group, the phylogenetic trees in these papers suggest a relationship between Clinopodium douglasii and several South American species currently classified as Clinopodium as well as the South American genus Minthostachys.[34][35]

As of November 2024, Plants of the World Online continued to place the species in the genus Micromeria,[3] though databases such as the Jepson Herbarium eFlora,[4] iNaturalist,[36] Calflora,[37] and the USDA PLANTS Database[6] place the species in Clinopodium.

Uses

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This species was used by native groups throughout its range of occurrence, from Southern California to western British Columbia, both as a beverage and a medicine.[9][10][11] The most widespread use was as a mint-flavored tea consumed as a beverage,[11][38][39][40][41] a use that was taken up by non-native settlers as well.[12][13] The plant was also used as a medicine, particularly as a treatment for colds and fevers, for stomach upset and colic, and as a "blood purifier" or as "good for the kidneys".[11][39] The Hoopa and Karok peoples are reported to have sometimes worn vines of the plant around their neck or in their hair as a fragrance,[42][43] while native people of the Oregon coast are said to have used the aromatic plant to disguise their scent when hunting.[44]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Species epithets within binomial names are always lowercased according to the modern rules of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, even when the species epithet is derived from a normally capitalized proper noun like the name of a person or geographic location. However, the practices of biological nomenclature that were in effect in 19th Century routinely capitalized species epithets named for persons. The usage and spellings here reflects Bentham's original designations for historical purposes rather than representing a valid name under current nomenclatural rules.

References

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  1. ^ Epling, Carl; Játiva, Carlos (1966). "A descriptive key to the species of Satureja indigenous to North America". Brittonia. 18 (3): 244–248. Bibcode:1966Britt..18..244E. doi:10.2307/2805363. JSTOR 2805363.
  2. ^ a b c d e Doroszenko, Anton Mykola (1986). "Taxonomic studies on the Satureja complex (Labiatae)". University of Edinburgh. Archived from the original on 2023-06-24.
  3. ^ a b c "Micromeria douglasii Benth." Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  4. ^ a b c Wetherwax, Margriet & Miller, John M. (2012). Clinopodium douglasii, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora. (Accessed 13 November 2024.)
  5. ^ Oregon Flora: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
  6. ^ a b United States Department of Agriculture PLANTS Database, Plant Profile: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
  7. ^ BONAP's North American Plant Atlas: Clinopodium.
  8. ^ a b Wood, Michael (2003-09-07). "Yerba Buena (Satureja douglasii)". California Native Plant Society, Yerba Buena Chapter. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
  9. ^ a b Turner, Nancy J; Bell, Marcus AM (1971). "The ethnobotany of the Coast Salish Indians of Vancouver Island". Economic Botany. 25 (1): 63–104 (p. 84). Bibcode:1971EcBot..25...63T. doi:10.1007/bf02894564. JSTOR 4253212.
  10. ^ a b Hedges, Ken; Beresford, Christina (1986). Santa Ysabel Ethnobotany. Ethnic Technology Notes (20). San Diego Museum of Man. p. 41. ISBN 9780937808429.
  11. ^ a b c d Moerman, Daniel E (1998). Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press. p. 520 (entry "Satureja douglasii"). ISBN 9780881924534. Mirrored at: "Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze". Native American Ethnobotany Database. Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT). Retrieved 2024-12-05.
  12. ^ a b c Weigand, James (2002). "Case study: California". In Weigand, James; Jones, Eric T; McLain, Rebecca J (eds.). Nontimber Forest Products in the United States. University Press of Kansas. pp. 81–86. doi:10.2307/jj.7941367.13. ISBN 9780700632916. JSTOR jj.7941367.13.
  13. ^ a b Turner, Nancy J (2018). "Learning new medicines: Exchanging medicinal plant knowledge amongst Northwestern North American indigenous and settler communities". Medicina Nei Secoli: Journal of History of Medicine and Medical Humanities. 30 (3): 949–976.
  14. ^ a b Font, Pedro (1776-03-27). "Diario: Dia 27. [de Marzo.] Miercoles". Web De Anza: Diario ampliado del Padre Pedro Font. Center for Advanced Technology in Education, University of Oregon. Retrieved 2024-11-18. [En está parage] y cerca la laguna hay hierba buena y muchos lirios, de modo que hasta dentro mi tienda los tenia. [Here and near the lake there are yerba buena and so many lilies that I had them almost inside my tent.] (Spanish original) (English translation)
  15. ^ Eldredge, Zoeth Skinner (1916-03-16). "El Paraje de Yerba Buena". Municipal Record. 9 (11). San Francisco, CA: 110–111. hdl:2027/uc1.32106019794160.
  16. ^ Browning, Peter (1998). San Francisco/Yerba Buena: From the Beginning to the Gold Rush 1769-1849. Great West Books. ISBN 9780944220085. p. 141.
  17. ^ Beidleman, Richard G (2006). California's Frontier Naturalists. University of California Press. pp. 48–53. ISBN 9780520230101.
  18. ^ a b c Bentham, George (1831). "De plantis in expeditione speculatoria Romanzoffiana observatis. Labiatae". Linnaea. 6: 72–82. p. 72, 80.
  19. ^ a b c d Bentham, George (1834). "XLVI.I.6. M. Douglassii". Labiatarum Genera et Species. Ridgway & Sons. p. 372.
  20. ^ a b c Bentham, George (1848). "Ordo CL. Labiatae". In de Candolle, Augustin Pyramus (ed.). Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, sive, Enumeratio contracta ordinum generum specierumque plantarum huc usque cognitarium, juxta methodi naturalis, normas digesta. Vol. 12. Paris: Treuttel & Würtz. pp. 27–603 (p. 223-224).
  21. ^ "Occurrence record: Herbarium: K000910684". Kew data portal. Kew Gardens. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  22. ^ Fischer, Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von; Meyer, Carl Anton von (1842). "1933. Micromeria barbata". Index Seminum, Quae Hortus Botanicus Imperialis Petropolitanus Pro Mutua Commutatione Offert. Accedunt Animadversiones Botanicae Nonnullae. 8: 67.
  23. ^ a b Gray, Asa (1878). Synoptical flora of North America. Vol. 2. New York: American Book Company. p. 359.
  24. ^ a b Bräuchler, Christian; Ryding, Olof; Heubl, Günther (2008). "The genus Micromeria (Lamiaceae), a synoptical update" (PDF). Willdenowia. 38 (2): 363–410 (p. 368). doi:10.3372/wi.38.38202.
  25. ^ Kuntze, Otto (1891). Revisio generum plantarum vascularium omnium atque cellularium multarum secundum leges nomenclaturae internationales cum enumeratione plantarum exoticarum in itinere mundi collectarum. Vol. 2. Leipzig: Arthur Felix. p. 513-515.
  26. ^ Briquet, John Isaac (1896). "Labiatae". In Engler, Adolf; Prantl, Karl (eds.). Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien nebst ihren Gattungen und wichtigeren Arten, insbesondere den Nutzpflanzen, unter Mitwirkung zahlreicher hervorragender Fachgelehrten begründet. Vol. 4(3a). Leipzig: W. Engelmann. pp. 273–375 (p. 296-297, 300).
  27. ^ Jepson, Willis Linn (1925). A Manual of the Flowering Plants of California (1st ed.). Berkeley: Sather Gate Bookshop. p. (p. 875).
  28. ^ Jepson, Willis Linn (1939). A Flora of California. Vol. 3. San Francisco: Cunningham, Curtis & Welch. p. (p. 422). doi:10.5962/bhl.title.7604.
  29. ^ a b Bräuchler, Christian; Meimberg, Harald; Abele, Tilman; Heubl, Günther (2005). "Polyphyly of the Genus Micromeria (Lamiaceae): Evidence from cpDNA sequence data". Taxon. 54 (3): 639–650. doi:10.2307/25065421. JSTOR 25065421.
  30. ^ Wagstaff, Steven J; Olmstead, Richard G; Cantino, Philip D (1995). "Parsimony analysis of cpDNA restriction site variation in subfamily Nepetoideae (Labiatae)". American Journal of Botany. 82 (7): 886–892. doi:10.1002/j.1537-2197.1995.tb15705.x. JSTOR 2445975. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  31. ^ Cantino, Philip D; Wagstaff, Steven J (1998). "A reexamination of North American Satureja s.l. (Lamiaceae) in light of molecular evidence". Brittonia. 50 (1): 63–70. Bibcode:1998Britt..50...63C. doi:10.2307/2807719. JSTOR 2807719.
  32. ^ Harley, RM; Atkins, S; Budantsev, AL; Cantino, PD; etc (2004). "Labiatae". In Joachim W. Kadereit (ed.). Flowering Plants: Dicotyledons: Lamiales (except Acanthaceae including Avicenniaceae). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Vol. 7. Berlin: Springer. pp. 167–275. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-18617-2_11. ISBN 9783642186172.
  33. ^ Bräuchler, Christian; Meimberg, Harald; Heubl, Günther (2010). "Molecular phylogeny of Menthinae (Lamiaceae, Nepetoideae, Mentheae): Taxonomy, biogeography and conflicts" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 55 (2): 501–523. Bibcode:2010MolPE..55..501B. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.01.016. PMID 20152913.
  34. ^ Drew, Bryan T.; Sytsma, Kenneth J. (2012). "Phylogenetics, biogeography, and staminal evolution in the tribe Mentheae (Lamiaceae)". American Journal of Botany. 99 (5): 933–953. doi:10.3732/ajb.1100549. PMID 22539517.
  35. ^ Drew, Bryan T.; Liu, Sitong; Bonifacino, Jose M.; Sytsma, Kenneth J. (2017). "Amphitropical disjunctions in New World Menthinae: Three Pliocene dispersals to South America following late Miocene dispersal to North America from the Old World". American Journal of Botany. 104 (11): 1695–1707. doi:10.3732/ajb.1700225. PMID 29158343.
  36. ^ iNaturalist: Yerba Buena (Clinopodium douglasii)
  37. ^ Calflora: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
  38. ^ Zenk, Henry (1976). Contributions to Tualatin ethnography: Subsistence and ethnobiology (MS thesis). Portland, OR: Portland State University. p. (p. 86).
  39. ^ a b Hall, Roberta L (1991). The Coquille Indians: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Words and Pictures Unlimited. p. (p. 42). ISBN 9780961988616.
  40. ^ Welch, James R (2013). Sprouting Valley: Historical Ethnobotany of the Northern Pomo from Potter Valley, California. Society of Ethnobiology. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-9887330-2-2.
  41. ^ Phillips, Patricia Whereat (2017). Ethnobotany of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians. Corvallis, OR: OSU Press. p. (p. 105). ISBN 9780870718533. OL 17628544W.
  42. ^ Goddard, Pliny Earle (1903). Life and culture of the Hupa. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. (p. 20).
  43. ^ Schenck, Sara M; Gifford, Edward Winslow (1952). "Karok ethnobotany" (PDF). Anthropological Records. 13 (6): (p. 369).
  44. ^ Haskin, Leslie L. (1977). Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast (2nd ed.). New York: Dover Publications. p. (p. 307). ISBN 9780486234694. OL 4902211M.
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Native to western North America.