Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Surprise meSurprise meSubscribe
Encyclopedia

Nectandra

Genus of flowering plants

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
4 min read
Source updated May 20, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Nectandra is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lauraceae. They are primarily Neotropical, ranging from northern Mexico through Central America, the Caribbean, and tropical South America to northern Argentina. They have fruit with various medical effects. Sweetwood is a common name for some plants in this genus.

Several species formerly placed in Nectandra are now placed in genus Damburneya.

01Description

They are trees and bushes, hermaphrodites. The leaves are alternate, entire, glabrous or pubescent pinnatinervias with longitudinal grooves. Simple, alternate, petiole 0.9 to 2.2 cm in length canalicular limbo 11 to 28 cm long and 5 to 11 cm wide, with 16-28 secondary veins; base acute decurrent and revolute, entire, apex elliptically shaped, green dark, and very oblique secondary veins visible on the underside. Terminal buds are whitish. The inflorescences are pseudo-axillary and paniculate, the last divisions cimosas, mostly somewhat pubescent, the flowers are small, rarely more than 1 cm in diameter, and white or greenish tepals equal. The fruit is an ovoid, fleshy drupe with a reddish-pink dome, green when immature and black when ripe.

Nectandra cissiflora berry.
Nectandra cissiflora berry.

02Ecology

A neotropical genus with 99 species, Nectandra is similar to Ocotea, to which it is closely related. The most characteristic distinguishing features are the position of the locules in the anther (in an arc in Nectandra and two rows in Ocotea); papillose pubescence is present; the Nectandra petals are fused at the base itself and fall as a unit in the old flowers; they are free in Nectandra but fall individually in Ocotea.

Medium trees reach 60 cm in diameter and 25 m in height with straight, slender, cylindrical boles with low low and thin protuberances at the base. The various species are located in the middle stratum of forests. Many species are used as timber.

The family Lauraceae was part of the Gondwanaland flora, and many of its genera migrated to South America via Antarctica on ocean landbridges during the Paleocene era. There, they spread over most of the continent. When the North American and South American tectonic plates joined in the late Neogene, volcanic mountains started creating island chains, later forming the Meso-American landbridge.

Pliocene elevation created new habitats for speciation. While some genera died out in increasingly xerophytic Africa, starting with the freezing of Antarctica about 20 million years ago and the formation of the Benguela current, others, like Beilschmiedia and Nectandra, which also reached south and meso-America, are still surviving today in Africa in several species. The genus Persea, however, died out in Africa, except for Persea indica, surviving in the fog-shrouded mountains of the Canary Islands, which, with Madagascar, constitutes Africa's Laurel forest plant refugia. In Meso-America, the genus Nectandra proliferated into new species, and some of its berries constitute a valuable food supply for the quetzal bird that lives in the montane rainforests. Since this habitat is constantly threatened by encroaching agriculture, the laurel forest animal and plant species have already become rare in many of its former habitats and are threatened by habitat loss.

03Medical use

Plants from this genus have been used to treat several human clinical disorders. It has been demonstrated that Nectandra plants have potential for analgesic, anti-inflammatory, febrifuge, energetic, and hypotensive activities. Nectandra has also been investigated as a possible antitumoral agent, and the presence of neolignans suggests its potential use as a source of chemotherapeutics. Crude extracts of Nectandra contain alkaloids and lignans, berberine and sipirine.

Some authors have postulated that tannins play important roles as antioxidant compounds in scavenging free radicals. It is reported that an extract of N. salicifolia has potent relaxant activity on vascular smooth muscle. Researchers around the entire world agree that extensive pre-clinical studies on herbal medicine are important and urgent, especially high-quality clinical and pre-clinical trials.

In pre-Columbian Peru the seeds, called amala in Spanish, were used as a muscle relaxant. In sites of the Sican culture, collections of the seeds have been associated with human sacrifice, and used to incapacitate victims prior to being killed.

04Species

99 species are accepted.

Watch videos about NectandraExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Nectandra”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.