Parthenium hysterophorus | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Asterids |
Order: | Asterales |
Family: | Asteraceae |
Genus: | Parthenium |
Species: | P. hysterophorus |
Binomial name | |
Parthenium hysterophorus | |
Parthenium hysterophorus is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to the American tropics. [1] Common names include Santa-Maria, [2] Santa Maria feverfew, [3] whitetop weed, [4] and famine weed. [5] In India, it is locally known as carrot grass, congress grass or gajar ghas or dhanura. [6] It is a common invasive species [7] in India, [8] Australia, and parts of Africa. [5]
Parthenium hysterophorus invades disturbed land, including roadsides. It infests pastures and farmland, causing often disastrous loss of yield, as reflected in common names such as famine weed. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] In some areas, heavy outbreaks have been ubiquitous, affecting livestock and crop production, and human health. [14] [15]
The plant produces allelopathic chemicals that suppress crop and pasture plants, and allergens that affect humans and livestock. It also frequently causes pollen allergies. [16] A study published in 2021 further showed that the plant could promote malaria by supplying much appreciated food and shelter to mosquitoes in Eastern Africa. [17]
It is being investigated as a means of removing heavy metals and dyes from the environment, control of aquatic weeds, commercial enzyme production, an additive in manure for biogas production, as a biopesticide, and as green manure and compost. [18]
The species has been listed as an invasive alien species of Union Concern. This means it is illegal to import or sell this species in the whole of the European Union. [19]
Contact with the plant causes dermatitis and respiratory malfunction in humans, and dermatitis in cattle and domestic animals. The main substance responsible is parthenin, which is dangerously toxic. [20] [21] [22] It also is responsible for bitter milk disease in livestock when their fodder is contaminated with Parthenium leaves. [23] Side effects after ingestion of any part of plants that encumber the trichomes and pollen are eczema skin inflammation, hay fever, asthma, burning and blisters, breathlessness and choking, allergic rhinitis, black spots, diarrhoea, severe erythematous eruptions [24]
Among other allelopathic effects of the species, the presence of Parthenium pollen grains inhibits fruit set in tomato, brinjal, beans, and a number of other crop plants.
Light infestations of Parthenium hysterophorus in cultivated fields may be hoed or weeded by hand if labour is available at acceptable cost.
Generally the application of herbicides is expensive and often harmful; Paraquat sprays may be applied while the weeds are young. Glyphosate is not effective against this species.
The most satisfactory and promising means of practical long-term control are biological. Several species that feed on the weed are variously in use or on trial in various countries. The best-established control organism so far is a beetle native to Mexico, Zygogramma bicolorata (Mexican beetle), which was first introduced to India in 1984. It since has become widespread and well-established on the subcontinent. It defoliates and often kills the weed, and its damage to the young flowering tops reduces seed production.[ citation needed ]
In various countries, such as Australia and South Africa, several other biocontrol agents have been released or are under evaluation. These include at least two more species of beetles that have been released in South Africa, a stem boring weevil Listronotus setosipennis , and a seed weevil Smicronyx lutulentus . [25]
Also in South Africa, rust fungi have been of some use: the winter rust Puccinia abrupta var. partheniicola plus the summer rust Puccinia xanthii [25]
In Australia, apart from the foregoing, yet other biocontrol agents have been employed or evaluated on Parthenium hysterophorus, to a total of 11 species since 1980. Of those eleven, nine appear to have established in various regions. The two with the greatest effect seem to be the Parthenium beetle Zygogramma bicolorata and a stem-galling moth Epiblema strenuana . However, other species that appear to have established usefully include a leaf-mining moth, Bucculatrix parthenica ; a stem-galling weevil, Conotrachelus albocinereus ; and a root-boring moth Carmenta ithacae . [26]
Centaurea is a genus of over 700 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding regions are particularly species-rich.
Senecio vulgaris, often known by the common names groundsel and old-man-in-the-spring, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is an annual herb, native to the Palaearctic and widely naturalised as a ruderal species in suitable disturbed habitats worldwide.
Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natural settings preventing non native species competing with native species.
Onopordum acanthium is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to Europe and Western Asia from the Iberian Peninsula east to Kazakhstan, and north to central Scandinavia, and widely naturalised elsewhere, with especially large populations present in the United States and Australia. It is a vigorous biennial plant with coarse, spiny leaves and conspicuous spiny-winged stems.
Allelopathy is a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and can have beneficial or detrimental effects on the target organisms and the community. Allelopathy is often used narrowly to describe chemically-mediated competition between plants; however, it is sometimes defined more broadly as chemically-mediated competition between any type of organisms. Allelochemicals are a subset of secondary metabolites, which are not directly required for metabolism of the allelopathic organism.
Centaurea diffusa, also known as diffuse knapweed, white knapweed or tumble knapweed, is a member of the genus Centaurea in the family Asteraceae. This species is common throughout western North America but is not actually native to the North American continent, but to the eastern Mediterranean.
Carduus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, and the tribe Cardueae, one of two genera considered to be true thistles, the other being Cirsium. Plants of the genus are known commonly as plumeless thistles. They are native to Eurasia and Africa, and several are known elsewhere as introduced species. This genus is noted for its disproportionately high number of noxious weeds compared to other flowering plant genera.
Cirsium arvense is a perennial species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native throughout Europe and western Asia, northern Africa and widely introduced elsewhere. The standard English name in its native area is creeping thistle. It is also commonly known as Canada thistle and field thistle.
Centaurea solstitialis, the yellow star-thistle, is a species of thorny plant in the genus Centaurea, which is part of the family Asteraceae. A winter annual, it is native to the Mediterranean Basin region and invasive in many other places. It is also known as golden starthistle, yellow cockspur and St. Barnaby's thistle.
Melilotus albus, known as honey clover, white melilot (UK), Bokhara clover (Australia), white sweetclover (US), and sweet clover, is a nitrogen-fixing legume in the family Fabaceae. Melilotus albus is considered a valuable honey plant and source of nectar and is often grown for forage. Its characteristic sweet odor, intensified by drying, is derived from coumarin.
A beneficial weed can be an invasive plant that has some companion plant effect, is edible, contributes to soil health, adds ornamental value, or is otherwise beneficial. These plants are normally not domesticated. However, some invasive plants, such as dandelions, are commercially cultivated, in addition to growing in the wild. Beneficial weeds include many wildflowers, as well as other weeds that are commonly removed or poisoned. Certain weeds that have obnoxious and destructive qualities have been shown to fight illness and are thus used in medicine. For example, Parthenium hysterophorus, native to northern Mexico and parts of the US, has been an issue for years due to its toxicity and ability to spread rapidly. In the past few decades, though, research has found that P. hysterophorus was "used in traditional medicine to treat inflammation, pain, fever, and diseases like malaria dysentery." It is also known to create biogas that can be used as a bioremediation agent to break down heavy metals and other pollutants.
Parthenium is a genus of North American annuals, biennials, perennials, subshrubs, and shrubs in the tribe Heliantheae within the family Asteraceae and subfamily Asteroideae.
Calotropis gigantea, the crown flower, is a species of Calotropis native to Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, China, Pakistan, and Nepal.
Zygogramma is a large genus of leaf beetles in the subfamily Chrysomelinae, which includes approximately 100 species. 13 species occur north of Mexico.
Lantana camara is a species of flowering plant within the verbena family (Verbenaceae), native to the American tropics. It is a very adaptable species, which can inhabit a wide variety of ecosystems; once it has been introduced into a habitat it spreads rapidly; between 45ºN and 45ºS and less than 1,400 metres in altitude.
Mikania micrantha is a tropical plant in the family Asteraceae; known as bitter vine, climbing hemp vine, or American rope. It is also sometimes called mile-a-minute vine.
Ageratina riparia, commonly known as mistflower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to Mexico. The species is widely adventive and has spread to Cuba, Jamaica, and other parts of the Caribbean. It has also been introduced as an ornamental plant and naturalized in a variety of regions, including parts of Hawaii, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Macaronesia, Oceania, Peru, and the Indian subcontinent. In tropical climates, A. riparia is highly invasive and a variety of control methods have been developed to reduce its spread.
Puccinia jaceae var. solstitialis is a species of fungus in the Pucciniaceae family. It is a plant pathogen that causes rust. Native to Eurasia, it is the first fungal pathogen approved in the United States as a biological control agent to curb the growth of the invasive weed yellow starthistle.
Epiblema strenuana, the stem-galling moth or ragweed borer, is a moth of the family Tortricidae. It is endemic to North America, but was introduced to Australia from Mexico to control the weeds of the family Asteraceae in 1982. It is occasionally misspelled as Epiblema strenuanum.
Zygogramma bicolorata, variously referred to as the Parthenium beetle or Mexican beetle, is a species of leaf beetle in the subfamily Chrysomelinae, native to Mexico.
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