Rehmannia is a genus of six species 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 order Lamiales

Lamiales

Lamiales is an order in the asterid group of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It includes approximately 11,000 species divided into about 20 families...

, endemic

Endemic (ecology)

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...

 to China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

The genus was included in the family Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae, the figwort family, are a family of flowering plants. The plants are annual or perennial herbs with flowers with bilateral or rarely radial symmetry. Members of the Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including...

 or Gesneriaceae

Gesneriaceae

Gesneriaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of ca. 150 genera and ca. 3,200 species in the Old World and New World tropics and subtropics, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.Most...

 in some older classifications. The current placement of the genus is in neither Scrophulariaceae s.s. nor Plantaginaceae

Plantaginaceae

Plantaginaceae Juss. or plantain family, are a family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales. The type genus is Plantago L..In older classifications it used to be the only family of the order Plantaginales, but numerous phylogenetic studies, summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, have...

 s.l. (to which many other former Scrophulariaceae have been transferred). Earlier molecular studies suggested that its closest relatives were the genera Lancea and Mazus

Mazus

Mazus is a genus of low-growing perennial plants in the lopseed family, Phrymaceae. Consisting of around 30 species, this genus is generally found in damp habitats in lowland or mountain regions of China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand....

(Oxelman et al., 2005), which have been included in Phrymaceae

Phrymaceae

Phrymaceae , also known as the Lopseed family, is a small plant family in the order Lamiales. It now consists of about 190 species, distributed worldwide but with the majority in western North America and Australia .Previously, this family was monotypic with the genus Phryma, and limited in...

 (Beardsley & Olmstead, 2002). Subsequently it was found (Xie et al, 2009) that Rehmannia and Triaenophora are jointly the sister group to Lindenbergia

Lindenbergia

Lindenbergia is a genus of herbaceous plants in family Orobanchaceae. It contains 12 species found in Africa and Asia, and is most abundant in India.It is named in honor of Johann Bernhard Wilhelm Lindenberg, a lawyer and bryologist from Germany....

and the parasitic Orobanchaceae.

Uses

Sometimes known as Chinese Foxglove due to its superficial resemblance to the genus Digitalis

Digitalis

Digitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials that are commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent reviews of phylogenetic research have placed it in the much enlarged family...

, the species of Rehmannia are perennial herbs. The plants have large flowers and are grown as ornamental garden plants in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and 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...

, and are used medicinally in Asia.

Known as dìhuáng (地黄) or gān dìhuáng (干地黄) in Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, R. glutinosa is used as a medicinal herb for a variety of ailments such as anemia

Anemia

Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...

, dizziness

Dizziness

Dizziness refers to an impairment in spatial perception and stability. The term is somewhat imprecise. It can be used to mean vertigo, presyncope, disequilibrium, or a non-specific feeling such as giddiness or foolishness....

 and constipation

Constipation

Constipation refers to bowel movements that are infrequent or hard to pass. Constipation is a common cause of painful defecation...

. Rehmannia contains the vitamins A, B, C, and D, as well as other useful compounds.

Homonym

The name "Rehmannia" has also been given to 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 Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 ammonite

Ammonite

Ammonite, as a zoological or paleontological term, refers to any member of the Ammonoidea an extinct subclass within the Molluscan class Cephalopoda which are more closely related to living coleoids Ammonite, as a zoological or paleontological term, refers to any member of the Ammonoidea an extinct...

s belonging to the Reineckeidae family.

Species

• Rehmannia chingii
• Rehmannia elata
• Rehmannia glutinosa
  Rehmannia glutinosa
  Rehmannia glutinosa is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it has the name Sheng Di huang . It is often sold as gān dì huáng , gān meaning "dried."-Medicinal uses:...
  
  - (Gan) Di huang in Chinese
• Rehmannia henryi
• Rehmannia piasezkii
• Rehmannia solanifolia