Lindera

The Latin name Lindera commemorates the Swedish doctor Johan Linder (1676–1724).{{cite book|last=Coombes|first=Allen J.|title=The A to Z of plant names|year=2012|publisher=Timber Press|location=USA|isbn=978-1-60469-196-2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781604691962}}

File:Lindera umbellata,紅葉するクロモジ（黒文字）B221157.JPG

Lindera are evergreen or deciduous trees or shrubs. The leaves are alternate, entire or three-lobed, and strongly spicy-aromatic. Lindera are dioecious, 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 is done by bees and other insects. 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 containing a single seed, dispersed mostly by birds. Many species reproduce vegetatively by stolons.

The genus appears to be able to occupy widely different habitats as long as its requirements for water are met.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}} Habitat fragmentation severely affects dioecious{{citation needed|date=May 2012}} 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.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}}

Most Lindera colonies occur in light shade beneath a forest canopy, but a few grow in almost full sunlight.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}}

In warmer areas they occur in bottomland hardwood forests.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}}

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 has been identified as a dispersal agent of seeds of L. melissifolia.{{Cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Carl G. |last2=Hamel |first2=Paul B. |last3=Devall |first3=Margaret S. |last4=Schiff |first4=Nathan M. |date=March 2004 |title=Hermit Thrush is the First Observed Dispersal Agent for Pondberry (Lindera melissifolia) |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2179/0008-7475(2004)069<0001:htitfo>2.0.co;2 |journal=Castanea |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=1–8 |doi=10.2179/0008-7475(2004)069<0001:htitfo>2.0.co;2 |s2cid=3694410 |issn=0008-7475|url-access=subscription }}

Lindera species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, including the engrailed and the spicebush swallowtail.

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.{{Cite book|last=Angier|first=Bradford|url=https://archive.org/details/fieldguidetoedib00angi/page/210/mode/2up|title=Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants|publisher=Stackpole Books|year=1974|isbn=0-8117-0616-8|location=Harrisburg, PA|pages=210|oclc=799792|author-link=Bradford Angier}}

Lindera umbellata contains linderatin, methyllinderatin and linderachalcone which are structurally related to cannabidiol.{{Cite journal |last=Ichino |first=Kazuhiko |date=January 1989 |title=Two flavonoids from two Lindera umbellata varieties |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/0031942289801566 |journal=Phytochemistry |language=en |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=955–956 |doi=10.1016/0031-9422(89)80156-6 |bibcode=1989PChem..28..955I |s2cid=84302225|url-access=subscription }}{{verification needed|date=July 2023}}

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Category:Lauraceae genera

Category:Dioecious plants