Pavetta

Pavetta is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It comprises about 360 species of trees, evergreen shrubs and sub-shrubs. It is found in woodlands, grasslands and thickets in sub-tropical and tropical Africa and Asia. The plants are cultivated for their simple but variable leaves, usually opposite but also occur in triple whorls. The leaves are often membranous with dark bacterial nodules. Pavetta has small, white, tubular flowers, sometimes salviform or funnel-shaped with 4 spreading petal lobes. The flowers are carried on terminal corymbs or cymes.[1]

Pavetta
Pavetta capensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Rubiaceae
Subfamily: Ixoroideae
Tribe: Pavetteae
Genus: Pavetta
L.
Type species
Pavetta indica
Synonyms


By looking at the Pavetta you would just imagine it being a normal pretty plant. “Pavetta crassipes (Rubiaceae), a Nigerian medicinal plant used in the indigenous treatment of tuberculosis”(N.N, Ibekwe).It is traditional for the African culture to use plants and herbs for medicinal purposes, to use as medicine to heal the ill.

Aleina S.

Ibekwe, N. N., Boshoff, H., Randle, J., Adesomoju, A. A., Barry, C. E. I., & Okogun, J. I. (2018). Chemical constituents and antimycobacterial studies of the leaf extracts of Pavetta crassipes K. Schum. Tropical Plant Research, 5(1), 88–95. https://doi.org/10.22271/tpr.2018.v5.i1.013

Gousiekte

Two Pavetta species, Pavetta harborii and Pavetta schummaniana, harbor endophytic Burkholderia bacteria in visible leaf nodules and are known to cause gousiekte, a cardiotoxicosis of ruminants characterised by heart failure four to eight weeks after ingestion of certain rubiaceous plants.[2]

Species

Selected species include:

Pictures

References

  1. Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants, C. Brickell, 1996, London, Royal Horticultural Society, ISBN 0-7513-0436-0.
  2. Verstraete B, Van Elst D, Steyn H, Van Wyk B, Lemaire B, Smets E, Dessein S (2011). "Endophytic bacteria in toxic South African plants: identification, phylogeny and possible involvement in gousiekte". PLOS ONE. 6 (4): e19265. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...619265V. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019265. PMC 3082559. PMID 21541284.
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