| Houttuynia | |
|---|---|
| Houttuynia cordata | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Magnoliids |
| Order: | Piperales |
| Family: | Saururaceae |
| Genus: | Houttuynia Thunb. |
| Species | |
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Houttuynia is a genus of two species in the Saururaceae native to Southeast Asia. One species, H. cordata, is widely cultivated as a culinary herb. The genus was originally described in 1783 by Carl Peter Thunberg when he formally described H. cordata as the only species. It remained a monotypic genus until 2001 when Zheng Yin Zhu and Shi Liang Zhang discovered and described a second species native to China, H. emeiensis.[1]