Brocchinia

Brocchinia
	Brocchinia cf. reducta natural habitat: Mount Roraima , Venezuela
Systematics
	Monocots
	Commelinids
Order :	Sweet grass (Poales)
Family :	Bromeliads (Bromeliaceae)
Subfamily :	Brocchinioideae
Genre :	Brocchinia
Scientific name of the subfamily
	Brocchinioideae
	( GSVarad. & Gilmartin ) Givnish
Scientific name of the genus
	Brocchinia
	School. & Schult. f.

Brocchinia is the only genus of plants in the subfamily Brocchinioideae withinthe bromeliad family (Bromeliaceae). The 20 or so species are common in northern South America. Brocchinia species are rarely found in culture, the most common is Brocchinia reducta .

description

Habitat of Brocchinia tatei on the Roraima-Tepui

Brocchinia species grow as perennial herbaceous plants . The leaves stand together in a leaf rosette. The simple leaves are smooth-edged and have only one end spine.

The inflorescence (inflorescence) grows upright and has green bracts (bracts). The small, inconspicuous flowers are radial symmetry and threefold. The three petals are white to green.

Flower formula : ${\ displaystyle \ star \; K_ {3} \; C_ {3} \; A_ {3 + 3} \; G _ {\ underline {(3)}}}$

They form capsule fruits with many small, airworthy seeds.

particularities

Carnivory and precarnivory

Brocchinia reducta and Brocchinia hechtioides are different from the other Brocchinia species. With them, the surface of the leaves is slippery, so that possible prey animals slip into the leaf funnel and drown.

So far it has been assumed that both species do not digest themselves with self-produced enzymes (in contrast to the carnivorous plants, the carnivores ), so the plants would need bacteria as a digestive aid. Therefore, these species were only referred to as precarnivorous. In 2005, however, Bartek Plachno from the University of Cracow in Poland demonstrated phosphatase activity in the digestive glands of Brocchinia reducta , which means that this species is to be regarded as carnivorous in the strict sense. No such studies exist yet for the closely related Brocchinia hechtioides , so a precarnivory can currently still be assumed for this species.

"Ant plant"

The species Brocchinia acuminata lives with colonies of ants. The leaves have a swollen base in which the ants nest. There are similar communities in other tropical plant species. Such plant species are called ant plants (Myrmecophytes). The ants' excrement serves as an additional source of nutrients for Brocchinia acuminata . So it is a symbiosis because both organisms benefit from it.

Locations

Most species of the genus Brocchinia grow epiphytically or lithophytically . Few Brocchinia species grow terrestrially . Some species that live on the tepuis grow on bare rocks.

Systematics and distribution

The genus Brocchinia was established in 1830 by Josef August Schultes and Julius Hermann Schultes in Johann Jacob Roemer & Josef August Schultes: Systema Vegetabilium , Volume 7, 2, LXX, p. 1250. The generic name Brocchinia honors the Italian natural scientist Giambattista Brocchi (1772–1826); The first description says: “ Diximus in honorem divi GB Brocchi, Italiae splendidi decoris, qui amore scientiae naturalius deperiit in Nubia. "(Translated:" Dedicated to GB Brocchi, the most splendid celebrity in Italy, who loved the natural sciences and died in Nubia (Egypt). ") Type species is Brocchinia paniculata Schult. f.

The genus Brocchinia was previously assigned to the subfamily Pitcairnioideae . According to molecular genetic studies, it alone forms the subfamily Brocchinioideae. Together with some other genera, it has been classified as a basal group of the Bromeliaceae. A synonym for Brocchinia Schult. & Schult. f. is Ayensua L.B.Sm.

The genus Brocchinia is common in Brazil , Guyana , Colombia and Venezuela .

About 20 species belong to the genus Brocchinia :
Habit and leaves of Brocchinia micrantha Habit and leaves of Brocchinia tatei in the habitat Brocchinia acuminata L.B.Sm. : It thrives on rocks as well as terrestrially on open summit areas and in thickets at altitudes of 600 to 1850 meters in Colombia and Venezuela . Brocchinia amazonica L.B.Smith : It thrives on rocks on river banks in the area of the Rio da Serra Aracá in the Brazilian state of Amazonas . Brocchinia cataractarum (Sandwith) B.Holst : This endemic thrives on small broken rocks at altitudes of around 60 meters in Guyana only in Essequibo. Brocchinia cowanii L.B.Sm. : It thrives at altitudes of around 1250 meters in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas . Brocchinia delicatula L.B.Sm. : It thrives in crevices at altitudes of around 1100 meters, locally common, in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas. Brocchinia gilmartiniae G.S.Varadarajan : It thrives in altitudes from 1,150 to 1,200 meters peak areas only in Bolivar. Brocchinia hechtioides Mez (Syn .: Brocchinia reducta sensu LBSm. Non Baker , Brocchinia cryptantha L.B.Sm. ): It thrives on rocks and terrestrially in savannahs and summit areas at altitudes of 1500 to 2125 meters in Colombia and Venezuela. Brocchinia hitchcockii L.B.Sm. : It thrives epiphytically on trees in the Bonnetia forest in the summit area at altitudes of about 2000 meters in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas. Brocchinia maguirei L.B.Sm. : It thrives terrestrially in swampy savannahs at altitudes of 1400 to 1800 meters in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas. Brocchinia melanacra L.B.Sm. : It thrives terrestrially on humid summit areas at altitudes of 1300 to 2000 meters in Venezuela in the states of Amazonas and Bolivar. Brocchinia micrantha (Baker) Mez (Syn .: Brocchinia cordylinoides Baker , Brocchinia andreana hort. Ex Baker , Brocchinia demerarensis hort. Ex Baker ): It forms stocks in savannas at altitudes of 500 to 1200 meters in Venezuela only in Bolivar and in Guyana only in Essequibo. Brocchinia paniculata Schultes f. : It thrives terrestrially, lithophytically and epiphytically at altitudes of 140 to 1500 meters in Colombia and Venezuela. Brocchinia prismatica L.B.Sm. : It thrives terrestrially in swampy savannahs at altitudes of 100 to 175 meters in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas. Brocchinia reducta Baker : It thrives terrestrially on the peaks of some Tepuis in the Gran Sabana south of the Orinoco in southern Venezuela and in north-western Guyana . Brocchinia rupestris (Gleason) B.Holst : This endemic thrives at altitudes of around 1000 meters on sandstone in the river bed or at waterfalls only in the river catchment area of the upper Mazaruni in Guyana only in Essequibo. Brocchinia steyermarkii L.B.Sm. : It thrives terrestrially in swampy savannahs at altitudes of 460 to 1220 meters in Guyana and in Venezuela only in the state of Bolivar. Brocchinia file L.B.Sm. (Syn .: Brocchinia secunda L.B.Sm. , Brocchinia olivaestevae Steyerm. & LBSm. ): It thrives terrestrially on open summit areas and epiphytically in moist forests at altitudes of 500 to 2410 meters in Venezuela in the states of Bolivar and the Amazon. Brocchinia uaipanensis (Maguire) Givnish (Syn .: Barbacenia uaipanensis Maguire , Ayensua uaipanensis (Maguire) LBSm. ): It was placed in a monotypical genus Ayensua from 1969; molecular genetic data shows that it belongs to brocchinia . In Venezuela it occurs only in the state of Bolivar. Brocchinia vestita L.B.Sm. : It thrives terrestrially in savannahs at altitudes of 1200 to 2000 meters in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas. Brocchinia wurdackiana B.Holst : It thrives at altitudes of around 150 meters in Venezuela only in the state of Amazonas.

swell

The Bromeliaceae family on the AP website . (Section systematics)
Werner Rauh : Bromeliads - Tillandsias and other culturally worthy bromeliads , Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8001-6371-3
Thomas J. Givnish, JC Pires, SW Graham, MA McPherson, LM Prince, TB Patterson: Phylogeny, biogeography, and ecological evolution in Bromeliaceae: Insights from ndhF sequences. In: JT Columbus, EA Friar, JM Porter, LM Prince, MG Simpson: Monocots: Comparative Biology and Evolution. Poales , Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden, Claremont, 2006, 23, pp. 3-26.

Individual evidence

Web links

Commons : Brocchinia - collection of images, videos and audio files

[biodiversitylibrary-1] First publication scanned at biodiversitylibrary.org.

[Grant1998-2] Jump up ↑ Jason R. Grant: An Annotated Catalog of the Generic Names of the Bromeliaceae , online version from Selbyana , Volume 19, Issue 1, 1998, pp. 91-121.

[APWebsite-3] The family of the Bromeliaceae - basal position of the genus. at the AP website.

[BromeliadEncyclopaedia-4] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u In “Species Index” click on Brocchinia in Eric J. Gouda, Derek Butcher, Kees Gouda: Encyclopaedia of Bromeliads , Version 3.1 (2012 ). Retrieved December 3, 2014.

[Luther2008-5] Harry E. Luther: An Alphabetical List of Bromeliad Binomials , 2008 (PDF; 321 kB) in The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, Florida, USA. Published by The Bromeliad Society International.