Leonotis

Leonotis is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae.<ref name="harley2004">Raymond M. Harley, Sandy Atkins, Andrey L. Budantsev, Philip D. Cantino, Barry J. Conn, Renée J. Grayer, Madeline M. Harley, Rogier P.J. de Kok, Tatyana V. Krestovskaja, Ramón Morales, Alan J. Paton, and P. Olof Ryding. 2004. "Labiatae" pages 167-275. In: Klaus Kubitzki (editor) and Joachim W. Kadereit (volume editor). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants volume VII. Springer-Verlag: Berlin; Heidelberg, Germany. Template:ISBN</ref> One species, Leonotis nepetifolia, is native to tropical Africa and southern India. It is naturalized throughout most of the tropics. The other species are endemic to southern + eastern Africa.<ref name=a>Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families</ref><ref name="iwarsson2003">Mattias Iwarsson and Yvette Harvey. 2003. "Monograph of the genus Leonotis (Pers.) R.Br. (Lamiaceae)". Kew Bulletin 58(3):597-645.</ref>

Leonotis was named by Robert Brown in 1810 in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.<ref name="brown1810">Robert Brown. 1810. Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen:504. (see External links below).</ref> The name means "lion's ear".

The type for the genus is the specimen of Leonotis ocymifolia that was originally described as Leonotis leonitis.<ref name="ingleonotis">Leonotis In: Index Nominum Genericorum. In: Regnum Vegetabile (see External links below).</ref> It is a specimen of Leonotis ocymifolia var. ocymifolia.<ref name="iwarsson2003"/>

Leonotis leonurus and Leonotis nepetifolia seem to be mildly psychoactive, similar to cannabis albeit producing a far less potent and less intense "high".

Species

1. Leonotis decadonta Gürke - southeast Africa from Burundi + Tanzania south to Mozambique
2. Leonotis goetzei Gürke - Tanzania
3. Leonotis grandis Iwarsson & Y.B. Harvey      - Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia
4. Leonotis leonurus (L.) Robert Brown - South Africa, Angola; naturalized in Burundi, Java, St. Helena
5. Leonotis myricifolia Iwarsson & Y.B. Harvey - Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia
6. Leonotis myrothamnifolia Iwarsson & Y.B. Harvey - Malawi, Zambia
7. Leonotis nepetifolia (L.) Robert Brown - sub-Saharan Africa from Ethiopia west to Senegal and south to Transvaal, also Indian subcontinent; naturalized in Morocco, Canary Islands, Southeast Asia, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, much of Latin America; West Indies
8. Leonotis ocymifolia (Burman f.) Iwarsson - eastern Africa from Sudan + Eritrea south to Transvaal
9. Leonotis pole-evansii Hutch. - Zambia

Taxonomy

Leonotis is a member of the subfamily Lamioideae.<ref name="harley2004"/> Leonotis might be paraphyletic or even polyphyletic because Leonotis leonurus is not closely related to the other species.<ref name="scheen2009">Anne-Cathrine Scheen and Victor A. Albert. 2009. "Molecular Phylogenetics of the Leucas Group (Lamioideae; Lamiaceae)". Systematic Botany 34(1):173-181.</ref> In 2009, it was shown that Leonotis and 3 other genera are embedded in Leucas,<ref name="scheen2009"/> a genus of about 100 species.<ref name="harley2004"/> If the 4 embedded genera were merged with Leucas, the expanded Leucas would have about 132 species.

External links

• Leonotis (page 504) In: Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen At: bibliography/3678 At:Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Leonotis At:Index Nominum Genericorum At: References At: NMNH Department of Botany
• Classification for Kingdom Plantae Down to Genus Leonotis, United States Department of Agriculture
• German Lion's-Tail Forum
• IPNI Listing