Gloriosa
Encyclopedia
Gloriosa is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of five or six species in the plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 family Colchicaceae
Colchicaceae
Colchicaceae is a botanical name of a family of flowering plants.The APG III system, of 2009 , does recognize such a family and places it in the order Liliales, in the clade monocots, and regards the family as including some two hundred species of herbaceous perennials with rhizomes or corms.The...

, from tropical Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. The most common English names are flame lily, fire lily, gloriosa lily, glory lily, superb lily, climbing lily, and creeping lily.
They are tender, tuberous rooted deciduous
Deciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 perennials
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

, adapted to summer rainfall with a dormant dry season. Their native range is Africa, Southeastern Asia and parts of Malaysia, but they are now widely cultivated. All parts of the plant contain colchicine
Colchicine
Colchicine is a medication used for gout. It is a toxic natural product and secondary metabolite, originally extracted from plants of the genus Colchicum...

 and related alkaloids and are therefore dangerously toxic if ingested, especially the tubers; contact with the stems and leaves can cause skin irritation.

Various preparations of the plant are used in traditional medicines for a variety of complaints in both Africa and India.

Gloriosa superba is the national flower of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

 (where it is a protected plant). It is also the state flower of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

 state in India, and was the national flower of Tamil Eelam
Tamil Eelam
Tamil Eelam , is the name given by certain Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora to the independent state which they aspire to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Tamil Eelam has no official status or recognition by any other state or authority...

, and as such was displayed during Maaveerar Day
Maaveerar Day
Maaveerar Day or Heroes' Day is a day of commemoration observed by Tamil people to remember the deaths of militants fighting for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam...

.

Botany

Gloriosa are perennial herbs that climb or scramble over other plants with the aid of tendril
Tendril
In botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape that is used by climbing plants for support, attachment and cellular invasion by parasitic plants, generally by twining around suitable hosts. They do not have a lamina or blade, but they can photosynthesize...

s at the ends of their leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 and can reach 3 meters in height. They have showy flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s, distinctive because of their pronouncedly reflexed petals, like a Turk’s cap lily, ranging in colour from a greenish-yellow through yellow, orange, red and sometimes even a deep pinkish-red.

Some synonyms, arising from the many variations, for Gloriosa superba include G. rothschildiana (or G. superba ‘Rothschildiana’), G. simplex, G. virescens, G. abyssinica, G. carsonii, G. minor, G. lutea, G. baudii.

Genus description

"Scandent herbs, the rootstock a horizontal rhizome, the stem leafy, the leaves spirally arranged or subopposite, the upper ones with cirrhose tips; flowers solitary, large, borne on long, spreading pedicel
Pedicel (botany)
A pedicel is a stem that attaches single flowers to the main stem of the inflorescence. It is the branches or stalks that hold each flower in an inflorescence that contains more than one flower....

s, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...

; perianth
Perianth
The term perianth has two similar but separate meanings in botany:* In flowering plants, the perianth are the outer, sterile whorls of a flower...

 segments 6, free, lanceolate, keeled within at base, long-persistent; stamens 6, hypogynous, the anthers extrorse, medifixed and versatile, opening by longitudinal slits; ovary superior, 3-celled, the carpels cohering only by their inner margins, the ovules numerous, the style deflected at base and projecting from the flower more or less horizontally; fruit a loculicidal capsule with many seeds"

Species

  • G. flavovirens
  • G. superba
  • G. grandiflora
  • G. lindeni
  • G. littonioides
  • G. revoilii
  • G. rigidifolia

G. superba description

A "scandent plant, climbing by leaftip tendrils. The perianth
Perianth
The term perianth has two similar but separate meanings in botany:* In flowering plants, the perianth are the outer, sterile whorls of a flower...

 segments, which are accrescent during anthesis
Anthesis
Anthesis is the period during which a flower is fully open and functional. It may also refer to the onset of that period.The onset of anthesis is spectacular in some species. In Banksia species, for example, anthesis involves the extension of the style far beyond the upper perianth parts...

 and become reflexed, are striking in color, yellow proximally and at margins and dark red in the median portion".

Habitat/ecology

In Australia, "scattered naturalized populations exist in the understorey of coastal dry sclerophyll
Sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is the term for a type of vegetation that has hard leaves and short internodes . The word comes from the Greek sclero and phyllon ....

 forest and sand dune vegetation throughout south-east Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 and New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

". It is considered a rampant and dangerous invasive weed in Australia, dominating the coastal dunes at the expense of native species and leading to deaths of native animals and birds when ingested.

In India,Gloriosa is distributed in the Western Ghats
Western Ghats
The Western Ghats, Western Ghauts or the Sahyādri is a mountain range along the western side of India. It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan...

 but the density is rapidly decreasing due to excessive uprooting by the Herbal Medicine producers.

Propagation

"Propagation generally occurs from seeds, although mature plants can be divided and grown from tubers. The hard seeds can remain dormant for 6-9 months."

Toxicology

While all parts of the Gloriosa contain colchicine
Colchicine
Colchicine is a medication used for gout. It is a toxic natural product and secondary metabolite, originally extracted from plants of the genus Colchicum...

, the roots have the highest concentration of the toxin. One-tenth of an ounce of Gloriosa root can be fatal to an adult.
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