Opopanax (genus)

Not to be confused with perfumery's opopanax.

Opopanax
Opopanax chironium
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Apiales
Family: Apiaceae
Subfamily: Apioideae
Genus: Opopanax
W.D.J.Koch[1]
Species

See text

Synonyms[1]
  • Panax Hill, nom. illeg.
  • Crenosciadium Boiss. & Heldr.
  • Maspeton Raf.

Opopanax is a genus of plants in the family Apiaceae.

Species

Opopanax includes four species:[1]

Etymology

The genus name Opopanax derives from Anglo-Norman opopanac, from Latin opopanax, from Hellenistic Greek ὀποπάναξ, from Ancient Greek ὀπός (opos, "juice") + πάναξ (panax, "all-healing").[2] Therefore, opopanax literally means the juice (gum resin) of all-heal. There were many different plants called all-heal (πάνακες or panaces) in Ancient Greece and Rome. However, according to Dioscorides, opopanax was obtained specifically from a kind of all-heal named πάνακες Ἡράκλειον (panaces Heraclion, "Hercules' all-heal"), which has been identified as Opopanax chironium,[3][4][5] O. persicus[5] and O. hispidus.[6]

The term opopanax traditionally refers to the medicinal gum resin of Opopanax sp., but in perfumery, opopanax refers to the gum resin of an unrelated species Commiphora guidottii.[5]

Taxonomic history

The genus was created by Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch based on the species Opopanax chironium, previously known as Pastinaca opopanax L. and Ferula opopanax Spreng.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c POWO (2024). "Opopanax siifolius (Boiss. & Heldr.) Menemen". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 2024-11-02.
  2. ^ "opopanax". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2009-12-27. (subscription required)
  3. ^ Dioscorides, Pedanius (1902). Des Pedanios Dioskurides aus Anazarbos. Translated by Julius Berendes. Stuttgart, Germany: Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. pp. 295–297.
  4. ^ Royle, John Forbes (1847). Carson, Joseph (ed.). Materia Medica and Therapeutics: Including the Preparations of the Pharmacopoeias of London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and (of the United States) with Many New Medicines. Philadelphia, US: Lea and Blanchard. p. 405.
  5. ^ a b c Thulin, Mats; Claeson, Per (1991). "The Botanical Origin of Scented Myrrh (Bissabol or Habak Hadi)". Economic Botany. 45 (4): 487–494. doi:10.1007/BF02930711. ISSN 0013-0001. JSTOR 4255391.
  6. ^ Dioscorides, Pedanius (2017). De materia medica. Translated by Lily Y. Beck (3rd ed.). Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag. ISBN 9783487155715.
  7. ^ "Generum Tribuumque plantarum umbelliferarum nova dispositio" [A new arrangement of the genera and tribes of umbelliferous plants]. Nova Acta Physico-Medica Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae Naturae Curiosum (in Latin). 12 (1): 55–156 (on page 96). Retrieved 8 June 2014.


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