Gelsemium is a genus of flowering plants belonging to family Gelsemiaceae. The genus contains three species of shrubs to straggling or twining climbers. Two species are native to North America, and one to China and Southeast Asia.

Carolus Linnaeus first classified G. sempervirens as Bignonia sempervirens in 1753; Antoine Laurent de Jussieu renamed the genus in 1789. Gelsemium is a Latinized form of the Italian word for jasmine, gelsomino. G. elegans is also nicknamed "heartbreak grass".^[1]

Properties

All three species of this genus are poisonous. In December 2011 Chinese billionaire Long Liyuan was killed when cat-stew that he was eating was allegedly poisoned with Gelsemium elegans.^[2]

Gelsemium has been shown to contain methoxyindoles.^[3]

Medicinal uses

As late as 1906, a drug called gelsemium, made from the rhizome and rootlets of Gelsemium sempervirens, was used in the treatment of facial and other neuralgias. It also proved valuable in some cases of malarial fever, and was occasionally used as a cardiac depressant and in spasmodic affections, but was inferior for this purpose to other remedies.^[4]

Species

• G. elegans. Heartbreak grass. Twining climber, native to India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, northern Myanmar, Taiwan, northern Thailand, Vietnam, and the Chinese provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Yunnan, and Zhejiang. Found in scrubby forests and thickets from 200-2000 meters elevation.
• G. rankinii. Rankin's Jessamine, Swamp Jessamine, Rankin's Trumpetflower. Native to southeastern United States.
• G. sempervirens. Yellow Jessamine, Carolina Jessamine, Evening Trumpetflower. Native to southeastern United States from Virginia to Texas and south through Mexico to Guatemala. It is commonly grown as a garden flower worldwide.

References