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Desfontainia
Desfontainia is a small genus of evergreen shrubs in the Columelliaceae, with spiny holly-like leaves and tubular red and yellow flowers; the best known species is D. spinosa from Chile and Argentina. Grow it in a sheltered, partly shaded spot in acidic, moist soil, with winter protection in frost-prone areas.
Desfontainia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Columelliaceae, though it was placed formerly in Loganiaceae, Potaliaceae (later subsumed in Gentianaceae), or a family of its own, Desfontainiaceae.
The genus was named for the French botanist, René Louiche Desfontaines.
Desfontainia spinosa was introduced into cultivation in Europe by William Lobb in 1843. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. It requires a sheltered, partially shaded position in acid pH soil.
Chemotaxonomically, Desfontainia was historically placed in the family Loganiaceae, but it has since been assigned to Columelliaceae.
Desfontainia spinosa has been found to contain, among other compounds including the cucurbitacins spinoside A and B. These bitter steroids, while not hallucinogenic, could contribute to the relative toxicity of the plant for human subjects, given that cucurbitacins exhibit cytotoxicity and that certain kinds have been held responsible for cases of poisoning, some fatal, by dangerously irritant/cathartic plants in the plant family Cucurbitaceae such as Ecballium elaterium and Citrullus colocynthis.
In the Valdivian temperate rainforest of Chile and Argentina D. spinosa is typically found growing in the understorey of forests dominated by Nothofagus (southern beech) species - particularly lenga (Nothofagus pumilio) and coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi).
Desfontainia spinosa has twice been reported with voucher specimens as a hallucinogen from Andean southern Colombia by Richard Evans Schultes : the first time in 1942 from the Páramo de Tambillo and the second from the Páramo de San Antonio in 1953.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Desfontainia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
