Mycorrhizal cheating: mutualistic facultative myco-heterotrophy in Chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata Thunb.)

摘要

Houtiuynia cordata Thunb. (Chameleon plant) is an aromatic ethnomedicinal plant of lizard's tail family (Saururaceae). It is a species native to Japan, South-East Asia, and the Himalayas (Watson and Dallwitz 1992). It is known as Famyrdoh in Khasi dialect and is traditionally used by the Khasi tribe of Nongkhyllem Reserve Forest Nongpoh, Meghalaya, India, in treating cholera, dysentery, stomach infection, and flatulence. The whole plant is also consumed in the local domestic culinary preparation. Itis a rhizome-bearing aromatic medicinal herb with creeping root stock, broad leaves, ovate-cordate, naked flowers in dense spikes that are subtended by four white and petalloid bracts (Bora 2001), and is restricted to specialized moist habitats. The root, young shoots, leaves, and sometimes the whole plant are traditionally used to cure various diseases throughout South-East Asia.