Veratrum californicum
Encyclopedia
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...
, the Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada is a Spanish phrase meaning "snow-covered mountain range" .It may refer to any of the following:-Mountain Ranges:* Sierra Nevada in Andalusia, Spain...
and Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
, and as far north as Washington State. It grows 1 to 2 meters tall, with an erect, unbranched, heavily leafy stem resembling a cornstalk
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
. It prefers quite moist soil, and can cover large areas in dense stands near streams or in wet meadows. Many inch-wide flowers cluster along the often-branched top of the stout stem; they have 6 white tepals, a green center, 6 stamens, and a 3-branched pistil (see top left image). The buds are tight green spheres. The heavily veined, bright green leaves can be more than a foot long.
It is a source of jervine
Jervine
Jervine is a steroidal alkaloid with molecular formula C27H39NO3 which is derived from the Veratrum plant genus. Similar to cyclopamine, which also occurs in the Veratrum genus, it is a teratogen implicated in birth defects when consumed by animals during a certain period of their...
and cyclopamine
Cyclopamine
Cyclopamine is a naturally occurring chemical that belongs to the group of steroidal jerveratrum alkaloids. It is a teratogen isolated from the corn lily that causes usually fatal birth defects. It can prevent the fetal brain from dividing into two lobes and cause the development of a single eye...
, teratogens which can cause prolonged gestation associated with birth defects such as holoprosencephaly
Holoprosencephaly
Holoprosencephaly is a cephalic disorder in which the prosencephalon fails to develop into two hemispheres. Normally, the forebrain is formed and the face begins to develop in the fifth and sixth weeks of human pregnancy...
and cyclopia
Cyclopia
Cyclopia is a rare form of holoprosencephaly and is a congenital disorder characterized by the failure of the embryonic prosencephalon to properly divide the orbits of the eye into two cavities...
in animals such as sheep, horses, and other mammals that graze upon it. These substances inhibit the hedgehog signaling pathway
Hedgehog signaling pathway
In a growing embryo, cells develop differently in the head or tail end of the embryo, the left or right, and other positions. They also form segments which develop into different body parts. The hedgehog signaling pathway gives cells information that they need to make the embryo develop properly....
.