Clinopodium douglasii

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Clinopodium douglasii, (synonym Micromeria douglasii), or Oregon tea 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. The plant takes the form of a sprawling, mat-forming perennial. The name "yerba buena" derives from Spanish for "good herb" and is applied to various other plants.

Description

thumb|left|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. The coastal and interior mountain distributions of this species are largely disjunct, and it is largely absent from the dry interior regions between these areas, such as the Interior and Columbia Plateaus and California's Central Valley. There is also a single collection of C. douglasii reported from Juneau, Alaska, but this is thought to be the result of an introduction, and this species is not otherwise found that far north. In California, it occurs occasionally in the western side of the northern Sierra Nevada. 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. Spanish missionaries gave the name yerba buena or hierba buena (good herb) to the plant, 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. "Yerba Buena" is still used for many place names in the San Francisco area.

Taxonomy

Early collections and type specimen

thumb|left|Type specimen of Micromeria douglasii (K000910684, right), collected by [[David Douglas (botanist)|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. These botanical specimens were eventually sent to George Bentham, a botanist specializing in the mint family, for botanical diagnosis. 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. 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.

19th and 20th centuries

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). This differentiation has not been generally accepted by later authors, who regard it as a synonym of Micromeria or Clinopodium douglasii.

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. and John Isaac Briquet 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. Micromeria chamissonis, 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, 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. 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. This concept of Clinopodium was endorsed in later synoptical works on the family Lamiaceae and the genus Micromeria published in the 2000s.

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. 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 phylogeny depicted below is based on those outlined in Bräuchler (2010), Calflora, and the USDA PLANTS Database, all place the species in Clinopodium rather than Micromeria.

Uses

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. a use that was taken up by non-native settlers as well. The Hoopa and Karuk peoples are reported to have sometimes worn vines of the plant around their neck or in their hair as a fragrance, while native people of the Oregon coast are said to have used the aromatic plant to disguise their scent when hunting.

Notes

References

External links

(Databases not listed under "Taxon identifiers")

BONAP's North American Plant Atlas: Clinopodium
Jepson eFlora: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
Oregon Flora: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
E-Flora BC: Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze
Montana Field Guide: Yerba buena (Satureja douglasii)