Colorful balsam

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Colorful balsam
Systematics
Nuclear eudicotyledons
Asterids
Order : Heather-like (Ericales)
Family : Balsamin family (Balsaminaceae)
Genre : Spring herbs ( Impatiens )
Type : Colorful balsam
Scientific name
Impatiens edgeworthii
Hook. f.

The colorful balsam ( Impatiens edgeworthii ) is a species of the genus bouncy herbs ( Impatiens ) within the balsamic family (Balsaminaceae). It is native to the Himalayas , especially Pakistan . In many areas of the world it is a neophyte , for example in Germany it is considered to be a naturalized neophyte.

Description and ecology

Vegetative characteristics

The colorful balsam is an upright, richly branched annual herbaceous plant . The stature height is given for Pakistan with 20 to 60 centimeters. Plants in Central Europe reach significantly greater heights, commonly 100 to 120, in extreme cases 220 centimeters. The long-stalked, elliptical to elliptical-oval leaves reach 40 to 180 millimeters long and 15 to 75 millimeters wide. The leaf is pointed, the edge of the leaf serrated. At the tip of the teeth there is a small, spiky gland.

Generative characteristics

The flowers sit on thin, upright flower stalks heaped in the upper section of the plant (subterminal).

The flowers are hermaphroditic; the colorful balsam can reproduce by cross - pollination as well as by self-pollination . The flowers are rotated 180 degrees ( resupinated ). The flowers are zygomorphic and five-fold with a double flower envelope . The lateral sepals are green in color and small, oval to heart-shaped. Of the five petals, the two lateral ones are fused together in pairs, they form a zygomorphic flower tube with the petal-like fifth sepal, which forms the spur . In the balsam the flower length (with spur) is about 25 to 30, occasionally up to 36 millimeters. The spur is strongly curved downwards. The flower color is highly variable, even within a population; there are pale yellow, deep yellow, whitish, pale purple, sometimes multicolored or veined in various colors. They almost always have a brownish throat markings. After breeding experiments are pure yellow, white and purple flowering plants homozygous, at crossroads between them, the forms Mendelian different according to a swarm of colored hybrids . The five stamens and anthers are fused together.

The upright capsule fruit with the balsam-typical centrifugal mechanism for the seeds is almost 3 centimeters long. The seeds, which are about 3 millimeters long, have a longitudinally wrinkled structure. The flowering period extends from July (exceptionally end of June) to September, ripe seeds appear from the end of July.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 12 or 14.

Occurrence

The original range of Impatiens edgeworthii is in the northwestern Himalayas , from Afghanistan to Kashmir .

The first find in Central Europe was in 2001 in the Leinawald in Thuringia. A little later named sites are the Leipzig alluvial forest and the banks of the Krummen Lanke in Berlin. The species has now been found in a number of forest areas in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Hesse and appears to be spreading further. In western Germany there has been an occurrence in the Borbeck Castle Park in the city of Essen (North Rhine-Westphalia) since around 2000 .

In Pakistan, Impatiens edgeworthii is one of the most common of the species-rich genus Impatiens . It grows gregariously at altitudes of 1,800 to 3,000 meters, both in sunny and shaded locations .

The occurrences in Central Europe are in disturbed places in the forest, on the edge of forest paths, on fields, on forest aisles, in tree-lined parks with a forest character. There are currently no occurrences in the interior of undisturbed forests, but it is highly probable that it will spread there. The species is able to completely displace another neophyte that arrived before it, the small-flowered balsam ( Impatiens parviflora ). In the Leinawald in Altenburger Land in Thuringia, the species formed mass populations in thinned hardwood forests that had previously had no herbaceous layer at all. In terms of its ecological requirements, the species is somewhere between Impatiens parviflora and Impatiens noli-tangere , it needs more soil moisture than Impatiens parviflora , but does not need as much air and soil moisture as Impatiens noli-tangere . In terms of plant sociology , it can be identified as a type of nitrogen-rich forest interior fringes of the Geo-Alliarion association.

The colorful balsam is very sensitive to frost and dies with the first night frosts. Only the seeds overwinter. The first seedlings can be seen from March. So far, the species only occurs in Central Europe below altitudes of around 400 meters, and its need for warmth may not be met at higher altitudes.

Possible damage

Volkmar Weiss assumes that the colorful balsam will continue to spread, but that no ecological damage is to be expected from it, as it either forms a layer of herb on previously bare forest floor, or at best can displace very common species or other neophytes. In their risk assessment for the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Daniel Lauterbach and Stefan Nehring come to the conclusion that it is a "potentially invasive" neophyte, but rule out economic damage.

relationship

The very species-rich genus Impatiens has its distribution center in East Asia, India and China. The species Impatiens edgeworthii is the sister species of Impatiens scabrida according to the data so far . Also Impatiens parviflora and Impatiens balfourii are closely related.

Ethnobotany

In Pakistan, the species called "Buntil" is used externally against burns and internally against gonorrhea .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Impatiens edgeworthii Hook., Buntes Springkraut. In: FloraWeb.de.
  2. ↑ a b c d Impatiens edgeworthii at Tropicos.org. In: Flora of Pakistan . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
  3. ↑ a b c d Hartmut Baade, Peter Gutte : Impatiens edgeworthii HOOK. f. - a new balsam for Germany. In: Braunschweiger Geobotanische Arbeit , 9, 2008, pp. 55–63. PDF. ( Memento from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Volkmar Weiss: To the ecology of Impatiens edgeworthii HOOK. f. in central Germany. In: Mitt. Florist. Map of Saxony-Anhalt 18, 2013, pp. 15–29 PDF.
  5. ^ Impatiens edgeworthii at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
  6. ↑ Hartmut Baade: New knowledge on the spread of Impatiens edgeworthii Hook. in the vicinity of Altenburg. Mauritiana 25, 2013, pp. 229-233.
  7. ↑ Volkmar Weiss: The red plague from a green point of view: Spring herbs - valued by beekeepers, fought by conservationists. Graz: Leopold Stocker Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-7020-1506-0 , therein pp. 116–134: The colorful balsam Impatiens edgeworthii , with 16 colored illustrations of this species on pp. 65–80.
  8. ^ Volkmar Weiss: Impatiens edgeworthii, an invasive balsam in Central Europe by its ecology. Does it be an aggregate species? KDP 2020, ISBN 9798640905816
  9. ↑ Daniela Guicking, Marcus Schmidt: The colorful balsam spreads in the Reinhardswald. Yearbook Nature Conservation in Hessen 18 (2019) pp. 80–81 [1] pdf
  10. ↑ Thomas Kalveram (2014): The colorful balsam (Impatiens edgeworthii) in Essen-Borbeck (North Rhine-Westphalia). In: Publications of the Bochum Botanical Association Volume 6, 6, pp. 47–49. PDF.
  11. ↑ Daniel Lauterbach, Stefan Nehring: Nature conservation-related invasiveness assessment Impatiens edgeworthii - Buntes Jalingkraut. In Stefan Nehring, Ingo Kowarik, Wolfgang Rabitsch, Franz Essl (editor): Nature conservation-related invasiveness assessments for alien vascular plants living in the wild in Germany. BfN scripts issue 352, 2013. ISBN 978-3-89624-087-3
  12. ↑ Steven B. Janssens, Eric B. Knox, Suzy Huysmans, Erik F. Smets, Vincent SFT Merckx: Rapid radiation of Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) during Pliocene and Pleistocene: Result of a global climate change. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution Volume 52, 2009, pp. 806-824. doi : 10.1016 / j.ympev.2009.04.013
  13. ↑ Rizwana Aleem Qureshi, Muhammad Asad Ghufran, Syed Aneel Gilani, Kishwar Sultana, Muhammad Ashraf (2007): Ethnobotanical studies of selected medicinal plants of Sudhan Gali and Ganga Chotti hils, district Bagh, Azad Kashmir. Pakistanian Journal of Botany , Volume 39, Issue 7, 2275-2283.

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