Gelsemium

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Gelsemium
Gelsemium sempervirens
Gelsemium sempervirens
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Gentianales
Family: Gelsemiaceae
Genus: Gelsemium
Juss.
Species

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.

All three species of this genus are poisonous. Gelsemium has been shown to contain methoxyindoles.[1]

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