Albuca caudata
| Albuca caudata | ||||||||||||
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Inflorescence of Albuca caudata |
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| Jacq. |
Albuca caudata is a species in the genus Albuca in the family of asparagaceae (Asparagaceae). It is endemic to the South African province of Eastern Cape .
description
Vegetative characteristics
Albuca caudata grows as an evergreen , perennial herbaceous plant . The mostly single, underground onion is egg-shaped to oblong with a length of up to 10 centimeters and a diameter of up to 6 centimeters. The upper part of the onion is somewhat elongated and covered with tiled, fleshy onion scales. The brownish to grayish, fleshy outer skin of the onions can occasionally have dark furrows. The numerous white, thick and mostly bulbous roots are also fleshy and can be up to 20 centimeters long and 0.4 centimeters thick.
The four to ten evergreen leaves appearing in front of the inflorescence are arranged in rosettes and are initially upright, but bend downwards with increasing age. The rolled up leaf blade has a length of 15 to 120 centimeters and a width of 0.5 to 2 centimeters in a linear-lanceolate shape. They are pale green to blue-green in color and, with the exception of the fine and warty hairy leaf veins and leaf margins, bare. The tip of the leaf blade is petal-round in young leaves.
Inflorescences and flowers
The flowering time of Albuca caudata extends from September to November. On a 12 to 55 centimeter long inflorescence stem stands the obliquely upright, racemose , inflorescence , which is 11 to 40 centimeters long. The upright single flowers are on a 0.2 to 9 centimeter long peduncle. The white bracts are ovate-lanceolate to triangular with a length of 1.1 to 2.5 centimeters and a width of 0.5 to 0.9 centimeters.
The upright flowers are radial symmetry and threefold. The six bracts are white and have a 0.2 to 0.4 centimeter wide, green central stripe and, occasionally, a yellowish tip. The outer three bracts are elongated with a length of 1.8 to 2.8 centimeters and a width of 0.4 to 0.7 centimeters and have a somewhat cap-shaped tip while the inner, egg-shaped petals 1.5 to 2.4 Be centimeters long and 0.4 to 1 centimeter wide and have a strong cap-shaped tip. All six stamens are fertile, with the outer anthers between 1.5 and 2.5 and the inner anthers between 3 and 4 millimeters in size. The outer, linear-lanceolate to approximately elongated stamens are 1 to 1.6 centimeters long, while the inner stamens are linear-elongated with a length of 1 to 1.7 centimeters. The draft tube ovary is oblong to obovate, with a length of 0.6 to 0.8 centimeters and a width of 0.2 to 0.35 centimeters. The lobe-shaped or inverted-conical-pyramidal stylus is 0.7 to 1 centimeters long. The scar is yellowish green.
Fruits and seeds
The triangular, loculicidal capsule fruits are three-sided and egg-shaped with a length of 1.4 to 2 centimeters and a thickness of 1 to 1.4 centimeters. When they ripen in late November to December, the fruits are pale brown in color. The flat, dark brown to black seeds are round with a length of 0.5 to 0.6 centimeters and a width of 0.4 to 0.5 centimeters.
ecology
In Albuca caudata is a geophytes .
Occurrence
This endemic occurs only in the South African province of Eastern Cape . The distribution area extends there from Addo in the west to Makhanda in the east and northwards to Somerset East .
Albuca caudata thrives at altitudes of up to 600 meters, further inland up to 900 meters. It usually grows in groups of shrubs.
Systematics
It was first described as Albuca caudata in 1791 by Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin in Collectanea . A synonym for Albuca caudata Jacq. is Ornithogalum aristatum (Jacq.) JCManning & Goldblatt . The specific epithet caudata refers to the rather pointed leaves.
swell
- Mario Martínez-Azorín, Manuel B. Crespo1, Anthony P. Dold, Nigel P. Barker: The identity of Albuca caudata Jacq. (Hyacinthaceae) and a description of a new related species: A. bakeri . In: PhytoKeys . No. 5 , 2011, ISSN 1314-2003 , p. 5-19 , doi : 10.3897 / phytokeys.5.1166 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Mario Martínez-Azorín, Manuel B. Crespo1, Anthony P. Dold, Nigel P. Barker: The identity of Albuca caudata Jacq. (Hyacinthaceae) and a description of a new related species: A. bakeri . In: PhytoKeys . No. 5 , 2011, ISSN 1314-2003 , p. 5-19 , doi : 10.3897 / phytokeys.5.1166 .
- ↑ Albuca caudata at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, accessed on May 10, 2017.
