Thelesperma is a genus of flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s in the aster family, Asteraceae

Asteraceae

The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

. Members of the genus are used by a number of the southwestern Native American tribes as a tea, as such it is sometimes called "Navajo

Navajo people

The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...

 Tea," "Hopi

Hopi

The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...

 Tea," etc. T. megapotamicum

Thelesperma megapotamicum

Thelesperma megapotamicum is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common name Hopi tea greenthread. It is native to sections of the Americas, including the central United States, where it grows in many types of habitat. It is a perennial herb producing a slender, branching...

contains luteolin

Luteolin

Luteolin is a yellow crystalline compound. It is a flavonoid; to be specific, it is one of the more common flavones. From preliminary research, it is thought to play a role in the human body possibly as an antioxidant, a free radical scavenger, a promoter of carbohydrate metabolism, or an immune...

. It also appears that many of the species contain a very similar chromatographic profile, and thus may contain very similar profiles of flavenoids. The genus is closely related to parts of Coreopsis and to certain North American Bidens

Bidens

Bidens is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. It contains about 200 species. The common names beggarticks, black jack, bur-marigolds, stickseeds, tickseeds and tickseed sunflowers refer to the achene burrs on the seeds of this genus, most of which are barbed...

species (including Bidens coronata and Bidens comosa). Thelesperma species are native to western North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, and Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.