PARTE UTILIZADA= Used part: Hojas frescas, raíz y bulbo.

ACCIÓN FARMACOLÓGICA= Pharmacological action: En la blenorragia (hojas frescas), afrodisíaco (raíz y bulbo).

COMPOSICIÓN QUÍMICA= Chemical composition: Gitogenin was purified from crude exts. of bulbs and roots of N. inodorum by butanol extn. at pH 4-5, hydrolysis in 4N HCl for 3-4 h, treatment with 20% MeOH-KOH, benzene extn., and chromatog. on neutral alumina. The product was eluted by 5% CHCl3-MeOH and recrystd.; its IR spectrum and chromatog. properties on silica gel were identical to those of pure gitogenin.

ZONA GEOGRÁFICA= Geografical zone: Uruguay.

DIVERSIDAD GENÉTICA Y MEJORAMIENTO DE PLANTAS MEDICINALES= Medicinal plants and improvement of medicinal herbs:

Loosely defined, Amaryllidaceae are lilioid plants with an inferior ovary.  Some authors had revised this definition using addnl. morphol. characters.  In this study, we address the following three questions: what is the systematic position of Amaryllidaceae; what are the intra-familial relationships; and where is the center of origin of this family.  To solve these questions, we sequenced the matK gene, which is located in the chloroplast genome and evolves more quickly than the rbcL gene.  A total of 31 species representing 31 of the 59 genera in the family were examd. in this study.  We also used 21 species from another ten families of Asparagales, four species from three families of Liliales and Acorus as outgroups.  We obtained partial sequences of matK with lengths of 1109-1148 bp, corresponding to positions 230 to 1343 of the Oryza sativa matK gene.  The pairwise percentage sequence divergence ranged from 0 to 19.1% for all the species examd. except Acorus, and 0 to 4.6% within Amaryllidaceae.  Two methods of phylogenetic anal., the Maximum Parsimony and Neighbor-Joining methods, were used.  The trees obtained from these two analyses were fundamentally consistent.  In both trees, the Amaryllidaceae sensu Dahlgren et al. formed a well-supported monophyletic clade with 100% bootstrap support.  Amaryllidaceae were included in the Asparagales; however, its phylogenetic position within the Asparagales was not clearly resolved.  Judging from the NJ tree, Agapanthus might be a sister group of the Amaryllidaceae, although bootstrap support for this was low.  Character-state mapping was used to infer a center of origin and the biogeog. history of Amaryllidaceae.  The result supports the hypothesis that the family evolved in Africa and subsequently spread to other continents, further suggesting that South America is the center of secondary diversification.  

1) GONZALEZ, Matías ; LOMBARDO, Atilio ; VALLARINO, Aida. Plantas de la medicina vulgar del Uruguay. Montevideo : Talleres Gráficos,1937, pp.75-76.

2) TOMBESI, O. L.; BRUNENGO, M. C. Gitogenin from Nothoscordum inodorum. Anales de la Asociacion Quimica Argentina. 1980, vol.68, nº3-4,  

3) ITO, Motomi; KAWAMOTO, et al. Phylogenetic relationships of Amaryllidaceae based on matK sequence data.  Journal of Plant Research. 1999, vol.112, nº1106, p.207-216.