Pichi Pichi

Description

Fabiana imbricata, or pichi, is a species of flowering plant in the family Solanaceae, native to dry upland slopes in Chile and Argentina. Growing to 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) tall and wide, it is a frost-hardy, heath-like evergreen mound-forming shrub. It has needle-like leaves and small white, tubular flowers in early summer. The upright form F. imbricata f. violacea, of horticultural origin, bears masses of pale violet flowers. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Fabiana imbricata is a long-lived shrub distributed via seeds, and broadly distributed within South America. Fire and wind, followed by post-fire high precipitation in the early spring are requirements for successful F. imbricata shrub requirement. Furthermore, F. imbricata is a keystone species within these ecosystems, reducing species richness while simultaneously increasing fuel load during grassland colonization events, altering the structure of the surrounding ecosystem. F. imbricata foliage has traditionally been employed as a diuretic and digestive, and has been proven to have a dose-dependent gastroprotective effect, in studies evaluating the main sesquiterpene of the foliage. Interest in F. imbricata has extended into the development of in vitro culturing of the plant’s tissue for the harvesting of secondary metabolites for further research. Fabiana imbricata is the type species for the genus Fabiana. A recent analysis of the family Solanaceae by Olmstead and Migid, which included 89 genera and 190 species, including F. imbricata as a representative of the genus Fabiana. This study employed two chloroplast DNA regions (ndhF and trnLF) to provide higher resolution than previous analyses through the development of both a strict consensus based tree, and a most parsimonious tree, illustrating inferred branch lengths. Their analysis placed F. imbricata in the same position in both trees. In both, F. imbricata is a sister clade with Calibrachoa parviflora (68% BS in the strict consensus based tree). These genera together are sisters to Petunia axillaris (100% BS in the strict consensus based tree). This group together is within the supergeneric group Petunieae, within the family Solanaceae.