G. dougl. (1,589)
G. elliptica (1,072)
G. flavescens (860)
G. fremontii (655)
G. laurifolia (2,888)
Synonyms: Garrya racemosa Ramírez
G. ovata (318)
G. veatchii (860)
GARRYACEAE Garrya dougl.
Garrya Dougl. [genus] GARRYACEAE
Common names: Silk-Tassel, Silk-Tassel Bush (Hortus) Tassel Tree (Griffiths)
W N Am.; 15 spp. Dioecious evergreen shrubs or small trees, branches ascending, somewhat quadrangular. Lvs. opp. simple, entire, leathery. Fls. without petals, in pendulous loose or stiff catkins, male fls. in 3s in the axils of 4-ranked united bracts, sepals 4, valvate, stamens 4, alternating with sepals, female fls. sol. in axils of bracts, sepals 2, small or obsolete, ovary inferior, 1 cell, 2 ovules, styles 2, stigmatic along inner surface. Fruit berry-like, 1-2 seeds. Bloom late winter, early spring. The only genus in the family (Hortus Third 1976: 495). W US, Mexico, W Indies. Fls. inconspicuous in pendulous bracteate catkins, male catkins stalked, clustered in branch axils, female catkins sessile, sol. Fruit a round, dry, dark 2-seeded berry (Griffiths 1994: 493). Included in Cornaceae (Standley 1924: 1084). Classically the family has been placed among the amentiferous families, often near Betulaceae. Others put it in Cornaceae, or in the Umbelliferae. Here put it in Order Garryales, near Umbelliferae (Flora of Guatemala, Standley & Williams 1966: 69). Family is in Rosidae – Cornales. Possibly allied to Cornaceae, esp. Aucuba: both have petroselinic acid as the major fatty acid in seeds, otherwise unknown in Cornales. However chloroplast DNA evidence is against this. x11. Seed in copious oily endosperm with reserves of hemicellulose (Mabberley 1998: 294)
GARRYACEAE Garrya elliptica
Garrya elliptica Dougl. ex Lindl. GARRYACEAE
Common names: Feverbush (Mabberley)
CA, OR, coast. Shrub or small tree to 25 ft. Lvs. elliptic to 4” long, rounded, undulate or crisped, green, tomentose beneath, hairs curly. Male catkins loose to 8” long, fruiting catkins to 4” long. Fruit globose to 0.5” diam., tomentose becoming glabrous. Bark & lvs. used medicinally (Hortus Third 1976: 495). Cult. ornamental shrub. Formerly medicinal, bark contains at least 5 alkaloids, incl. delphinine, which is otherwise known only from Aconitum [Ranunculaceae] & Delphinium [Ranunculaceae] (Mabberley 1998: 294) A kinni-kinnick that the Paiute Indians smoked with tobacco in the medicine pipe. Other plants called kinnikinnick include Arctostaphylos [Ericaceae], Chimaphila [Ericaceae], Arenaria [Caryophyllaceae] (Siegel, Collings & Diaz 1977: 19). Valid species (GRIN 2006)
GARRYACEAE Garrya flavescens
Garrya flavescens S. Wats. GARRYACEAE
Common names: Quinine Bush, Yellow-Leaf Silk-Tassel (Jaeger)
S UT, NM to N Mexico. Shrub to 10 ft. Lvs. lanceolate to 3” long, yellowish-green, glabrous abov4e, appressed hairs beneath. Male and fruiting catkins stiff, to 2” long. Fruit ovoid to 0.2” diam., silky-pubescent (Hortus Third 1976: 495). Dry canyons & slopes at the lower edge of the juniper belt, Mohave Desert to UT. Dr. Lindley considered Garrya the greatest botanical curiosity in all David Douglas’ collection. The young leathery lvs. are grayish-green, older lvs. distinctly yellowish. Fls. lemon-chrome. All parts of the plant, incl. the catkins, are intensely bitter, unpalatable to most browsing animals (Jaeger 1941). Valid species (GRIN 2006)
GARRYACEAE Garrya fremontii
Garrya fremontii Torr. GARRYACEAE
Common names: Fever Bush, Skunk Bush, Quinine Bush (Griffiths) Bearbrush (NRCS)
CA, OR. Shrub to 3 m. Lvs. broad-elliptic to 6 cm, dark glossy green & hairy above & beneath at first. Catkins clustered terminally, male catkins to 20 cm, yellow, female catkins to 5 cm, woolly. Bloom sprin (Griffiths 1994: 493). Lvs. used medicinally (Hortus Third 1976: 495). Bitter lvs. contain an alkaloid, garryine. Used in CA as a tonic & antiperiodic (Standley 1924: 1085). Valid species (GRIN 2006)
GARRYACEAE Garrya laurifolia
Garrya laurifolia Hartweg ex Benth. GARRYACEAE
Synonyms: Garrya racemosa Ramírez
Common names: Zapotillo (von Reis)
Mexico, Guatemala to Costa Rica. Mt. forest. To 12 m, trunk to 50 cm diam. Tree often fruits when only 2 m high. Staminate racemes dense, branched, bracts lanceolate; bracts of pistillate racemes often large, leaf-like. Fruit black, glabrous, lustrous, globose, to 1 cm diam. Characteristic & abundant tree in many barrancos of cent. Guatemala. Apparently the wood is not used (Flora of Guatemala, Standley & Williams 1966: 72). Shrub or tree to 5 m. Lvs. to 15 cm, broadly elliptic (Griffiths 1994: 493). Chih. to Ver., Chis., Jal. Shrub to small tree to 6 m, branches cinereous-tomentose. Lvs. oblong to 15 cm long, soon glabrate. Infl. branched, fls. sol. in the bracts, lower bracts large, resemble the lvs. Fruit dark blue, glabrous, to 8 mm diam. Bark is v. bitter, said to contain an active principle, garryine. Much used for diarrhea (Standley 1924: 1086). In Chis. v. common in second growth, understory of pine-oak forests in temp. & cold country. No known uses. Considered by all Tzeltal informants to be poisonous if burned as firewood. The smoke is said to be fatal to chickens; one name, chamel mute’, illness-of-chicken tree (Berlin, Breedlove & Raven 1974: 168). Tepehuan of Chih. use this easily worked wood to make arrows. Also for the foreshaft of composite arrows, violin bows, and the 3” ball used in the kickball game (Pennington 1969). Prof. Gumersinolo Mendoza, 1867, reported the bark contains a crystalline bitter principle, garryina, also resin, tannic acid, etc. Alkaloid is 0.2% in bark, 0.04% in lvs., 0.4% in root. bark decoction in doses of 8 cc causes death of rabbits when injected intravenously, by paralysis of the respiratory center; less than 5 cc increase the amplitude & number of resp. movements. Acts as a bitter tonic on the gastrointestinal tract. Bark decoction or extract in other animals caused increased respiration and cardiac contractions. However a fluid extract, even in a dose of 30 g, given orally to dogs is not toxic. The tincture or extract has been used for chronic diarrhea with good results, given before each meal (Martínez 1959: 93). Species & synonym not in GRIN (GRIN 2006)
Garrya laurifolia var. macrophylla Benth.
Mexico. Robust shrub or small tree to 3 m. Lvs. to 15 cm, oblong, dark glossy above, tomentose beneath. Male catkins to 7 cm, usually branched, female catkins to 12 cm. Bloom early summer (Griffiths 1994: 493). Taxon not in GRIN (GRIN 2006)
GARRYACEAE Garrya ovata
Garrya ovata Benth. GARRYACEAE
Chih. to SLP, Pue., W TX, S NM. Shrub to 3 m. Lvs. to 5 cm long, when young densely tomentulose on both surfaces, in age glabrate & lustrous above. Fruit dark blue, to 8 mm diam (Standley 1924: 1085). Valid species (GRIN 2006)
GARRYACEAE Garrya veatchii
Garrya veatchii Kellogg GARRYACEAE
Common names: Quinine Bush (von Reis)
Cent. CA to N Baja. Shrub to 6 ft., branchlets white-tomentose. Lvs. lanceolate to elliptic to 3” long, acuminate, flat along margin, tomentulose above, densely tomentose beneath. Male catkins mod. stiff, to 4” long, fruiting catkins 2” long. Fruit subglobose, 0.2” diam., buff to purple-brown, becoming glabrous (Hortus Third 1976: 495). [Note: There are at least three 19th cent. botanists named Veitch, none named Veatch; may be a friend of Kellogg’s.] Paipai in Baja use it for wounds, boils (Ford 1975). In CA called quinine bush (von Reis & Lipp 1982: 225) Listed (NRCS database 2004) Name not in GRIN (GRIN 2006)
Bibliography
Berlin, B., D. E. Breedlove, and P. H. Raven. 1974. Principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification: An Introduction to the Botanical Ethnography of a Mayan-Speaking People of Highland Chiapas. Academic Press, New York NY.
Flora of Guatemala (Standley, Paul C.; Williams, Louis O.). 1966. Part 8(2): Garryaceae. Chicago Natural History Museum, Chicago IL.
Ford, K. C. 1975. Las Yerbas de la Gente: A Study of Hispano-American Medicinal Plants. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI.
Griffiths, M. 1994. Index of Garden Plants. Royal Horticultural Society, London U.K.
GRIN. 2006. USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program. http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/paper.pl (7 August 2006).
Hortus Third. 1976. Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York NY.
Jaeger, E. C. 1941. Desert Wild Flowers, 2nd edition. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA.
Mabberley, D. 1998. The Plant-Book., 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Gt. Britain.
Martínez, M. 1959. Las Plantas Medicinales de Mexico., 4th ed. Ediciones Botas, Mexico DF, Mexico.
NRCS database. 2004. The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5, http://plants.usda.gov. USDA, Baton Rouge LA.
Pennington, C. W. 1969. The Tepehuan of Chihuahua: Their Material Culture. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City UT.
Siegel, R., P. Collings, and J. Diaz. 1977. On the Use of Tagetes lucida and Nicotiana rustica as a Huichol Smoking Mixture: The Aztec ‘Yahuti” with Suggestive Hallucinogenic Effects. Economic Botany 31(1):16-23.
Standley, P. C. 1924. Trees and Shrubs of Mexico, Part IV. Contributions from the U.S. National Herbarium, Vol. 23. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
von Reis, S. and F. J. Lipp, Jr. 1982. New Plant Sources for Drugs and Foods from the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.