Alpine butterwort
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Alpine butterwort ( Pinguicula alpina ) |
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The alpine butterwort ( Pinguicula alpina ) is a plant species from the genus of the butterwort ( Pinguicula ) within the water hose family (Lentibulariaceae). It is widespread in Eurasia and is one of the few native butterwort species in German-speaking countries. According to its specific epithet Pinguicula and common name Alpen-Fettkraut, this carnivorous plant is mainly found in the mountains.
Description and ecology
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Vegetative characteristics
The alpine butterwort is a deciduous, perennial herbaceous plant that reaches heights of 5 to 15 centimeters. The root is 1 to 2 centimeters long, white-yellow, fleshy and strand-shaped. After flowering, vital plants form bulbs around 3 millimeters long in the axils of the leaves, which are used for vegetative reproduction . In arctic locations, however, the bulb formation does not occur. Towards winter the plant moves into a hibernacle , a bud slightly sunk into the ground, from which it only sprouts in spring, so it is a hemicryptophyte . As the only tempered butterwort species, the alpine butterwort has rooted hibernacles.
Five to eight leaves form a rosette up to six centimeters in diameter, lying flat on the ground. The simple, fleshy, light green to reddish leaf blades are elliptical to lanceolate, elongated. On the surface, the leaves are sticky from the secretions they use to catch small insects. As soon as prey is obtained, it is digested by enzymes that are secreted from the leaf surface by glands that are missing along the midrib of the leaves. The leaves are very mobile to support the catch and can curl up almost to the middle of the leaf. When exposed to strong sunlight, the leaves turn reddish in color.
Generative characteristics
The alpine butterwort blooms for the first time only after several years. From April to July, up to eight, rarely even up to thirteen inflorescences with single flowers grow from the center of the rosette . The inflorescence shafts are up to 12 centimeters high.
The hermaphroditic flowers are zygomorphic with a length of 10 to 16 millimeters and five-fold with a double flower envelope . The five sepals are fused. There is a relatively short, conical, yellow-green spur with a length of 2 to 3 millimeters. The five Keron leaves have grown together. The corolla consists of a three-lobed lower lip and a two-lobed upper lip. The corolla is white with a yellow throat spot that varies in shape and size. The crown throat is hairy. The flowers are protogynous , that is, the female stigmas ripen before the male anthers. The pollination is carried by flies .
The oval, pointed capsule fruits with a length of 6 to 9 millimeters and a width of 2 to 3 millimeters contain plenty of dust-fine, rust-brown seeds.
The basic chromosome number is x = 8; there is tetraploidy with a chromosome number of 2n = 32.
distribution
The alpine butterwort has two main distribution areas in Europe , one in the Alps (especially the peripheral Alps) and the other in the extreme, subarctic north of Scandinavia. Pinguicula alpina reaches its limits in the west in the Pyrenees and in the east in the Carpathians , but is also found scattered as a glacial relic in the Baltic States and the Balkans (Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia). Before the Ice Age , however , the Alpine butterwort was native to Asia , where it is still found in Siberia, China and all over the Himalayas (Nepal, Tibet, India) today .
In the German-speaking area, the alpine butterwort is found not only in Switzerland and, apart from Vienna, scattered all over Austria (where occurrences away from the Alps are glacial relics and do not radiate from the Alps), but also in Germany, where it is found next to the common butterwort ( Pinguicula vulgaris ) is the only butterwort species that occurs.
Habitats and plant communities
The alpine butterwort is found at altitudes of up to 4100 meters in full sun. In the Allgäu Alps, it rises in the Tyrolean part east of the Karjoch to an altitude of 2167 meters.
The habitats have alkaline to neutral, seeping soils. The plant is also unusually drought tolerant for a butterwort species in temperate zones. The alpine butterwort is typical of subalpine sewerage meadows , spring moors and alpine stone lawns.
It often occurs in the alpine altitudes with upholstery sedge , alpine sun rose , snake knotweed , silver arum and head lice . Here it is mainly found in the plant communities of the Seslerion albicantis (Alpine blue grass lawn) and the Caricetum firmae (upholstered sedge lawn) association.
In colline to montane occurrences it is accompanied by black copfried , rust-red copfried , swamp stendelwort , spoonwort , but also the common butterwort. Here it is mainly found in the plant communities of the associations Caricion davallianae (lime low moor, Davallseggen marsh) and Cratoneurion commutati (lime spring meadow ).
Hazard and protection
The alpine butterwort is not directly endangered because of its geographically wide distribution. In Germany, however, it is rare and particularly protected by the Federal Species Protection Ordinance. In Switzerland it is partly protected at cantonal level, but is largely considered safe. In Austria it is only considered to be regionally endangered in the Pannonian area and in the northern foothills of the Alps .
Systematics
In 1583, Clusius already distinguished two forms in his Historia stirpium rariorum per Pannoniam, Austriam , a blue-flowered ( common butterwort , Pinguicula vulgaris ) and a white-flowered (alpine butterwort). In 1753 Linné took on Pinguicula alpina and Pinguicula vulgaris in his work Species Plantarum together with Pinguicula villosa and Pinguicula lusitanica .
Since then, numerous subspecies , varieties and forms of the Alpine butterwort have been described, but none of these taxa is accepted any more.
The Alpine butterwort is ( apart from the extremely rare Pinguicula crystallina ) the only European species that does not belong to the Pinguicula section . Instead, it belongs to the Micranthus section , of which it is a type species and whose three other members are native to Russia, northern Siberia and Japan.
use
Folk medicine made no further distinction between the different types of fatty herbs, but used them against wounds, tumors, sciatica , liver ailments and stomach, breast and lung diseases. Their use against the diseases mentioned is attributed to the cinnamic acid contained in the plant .
literature
- Wilhelm Barthlott , Stefan Porembski, Rüdiger Seine, Inge Theisen: Carnivores. Biology and culture of carnivorous plants. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-4144-2 .
- Maria Teresa della Beffa: Alpine flowers. A comprehensive guide to finding, determining and recognizing. Neuer Kaiser Verlag, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-7043-2181-8 .
- S. Jost Casper : Monograph of the genus Pinguicula L. (= Bibliotheca Botanica. H. 127/128, ISSN 0067-7892 ). Swiss beard, Stuttgart 1966.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Pinguicula alpina L., Alpine butterwort. In: FloraWeb.de.
- ↑ a b c Alpine butterwort . In: BiolFlor, the database of biological-ecological characteristics of the flora of Germany.
- ^ Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . With the collaboration of Angelika Schwabe and Theo Müller. 8th, heavily revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 , pp. 868 .
- ↑ Erhard Dörr, Wolfgang Lippert : Flora of the Allgäu and its surroundings. Volume 2, IHW, Eching 2004, ISBN 3-930167-61-1 , p. 491.
Web links
- Profile and distribution map for Bavaria . In: Botanical Information Hub of Bavaria .
- Pinguicula alpina L. In: Info Flora , the national data and information center for Swiss flora . Retrieved March 25, 2016.
- Thomas Meyer: Fettkraut data sheet with identification key and photos at Flora-de: Flora von Deutschland (old name of the website: Flowers in Swabia ).
- Comprehensive information on Alpine butterwort (English)
