Ophiopogon is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of herbaceous perennial plant

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

s with about 65 species, native to warm temperate to tropical east, southeast, and south Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. The name of the genus is derived from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 Όφις ophis, "snake", and πόγὦν pogon, "beard", most probably referring to its leaves and its tuffed growth. In the APG III classification system

APG III system

The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy...

, it is placed in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Asparagaceae

Asparagaceae

Asparagaceae is the botanical name of a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots.In earlier classification systems, the species involved were often treated as belonging to the family Liliaceae...

, subfamily Nolinoideae (formerly the family Ruscaceae). Like many lilioid monocot

Lilioid monocot

Lilioid monocots or lilioids is an informal name used for a grade of five monocot orders in which the majority of species have flowers with relatively large, coloured tepals, broadly similar to those of lilies...

s, it was formerly classified in the Liliaceae

Liliaceae

The Liliaceae, or the lily family, is a family of monocotyledons in the order Liliales. Plants in this family have linear leaves, mostly with parallel veins but with several having net venation , and flower arranged in threes. Several have bulbs, while others have rhizomes...

.

They grow from short rhizomes, and bear tufts of leaves, from which flowers emerge in raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s held on short stems above the leaves.

Selected species

Ophiopogon albimarginatus Ophiopogon amblyphyllus Ophiopogon angustifoliatus Ophiopogon bockianus Ophiopogon bodinieri Ophiopogon chingii Ophiopogon chingii Ophiopogon chingii, is a small ground cover evergreen perennial. It grows from short rhizomes, and bears tufts of leaves, from which flowers emerge in racemes held on short stems above the leaves. The foliage is curly and green with neon blue berries in the summer. Its native to Japan.This small... Ophiopogon clarkei Ophiopogon clavatus Ophiopogon corifolius Ophiopogon dracaenoides Ophiopogon filipes Ophiopogon fooningensis Ophiopogon grandis Ophiopogon heterandrus Ophiopogon hongjiangensis Ophiopogon intermedius Ophiopogon jaburan

Ophiopogon japonicus Ophiopogon jiangchengensis Ophiopogon latifolius Ophiopogon lushuiensis Ophiopogon mairei Ophiopogon marmoratus Ophiopogon megalanthus Ophiopogon menglianensis Ophiopogon motouensis Ophiopogon multiflorus Ophiopogon ogisui Ophiopogon paniculatus Ophiopogon peliosanthoides Ophiopogon pingbienensis Ophiopogon planiscapus Ophiopogon planiscapus Ophiopogon planiscapus, Black Mondo Grass, Ebony Knight or Nigrescens, is a small ground cover evergreen perennial. It grows from short rhizomes, and bears tufts of leaves, from which flowers emerge in racemes held on short stems above the leaves. Its leaves turn from green to dark purple and can... Ophiopogon platyphyllus Ophiopogon pseudotonkinensis

Ophiopogon reptans Ophiopogon reversus Ophiopogon revolutus Ophiopogon sarmentosus Ophiopogon sinensis Ophiopogon sparsiflorus Ophiopogon stenophyllus Ophiopogon sylvicola Ophiopogon szechuanensis Ophiopogon tienensis Ophiopogon tonkinensis Ophiopogon tsaii Ophiopogon umbraticola Ophiopogon xylorrhizus Ophiopogon yunnanensis Ophiopogon zingiberaceus

Cultivation and uses

Some species such as Ophiopogon japonicus and Ophiopogon planiscapus are used as ground cover plants.

In Chinese medicine the tuber of Ophiopogon japonicus, known as mai men dong, is the cardinal herb for yin

Yin and yang

In Asian philosophy, the concept of yin yang , which is often referred to in the West as "yin and yang", is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only...

 deficiency. According to the Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica, the herb is sweet, slightly bitter and slightly cold, enters the heart, lung and stomach channels and nourishes the yin of the stomach, spleen, heart and lungs and clears heat and quiets irritability. It is used for hacking dry coughs, dry tongue and mouth and constipation. Liriope (genus)

Liriope (genus)

Liriope is a genus of low, grass-like, flowering plants from East Asia. Some species are often used in landscaping in temperate latitudes. They may be called lilyturf in North America although neither a true grass nor lily...

is used as a substitute.