Ceropegia thwaitesii
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Ceropegia thwaitesii (from Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Volume 80 (= 3rd ser. Volume 10), Plate 4758, 1854) |
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| Ceropegia thwaitesii | ||||||||||||
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Ceropegia thwaitesii is a species of plant from the subfamily of the asclepiadoideae (Asclepiadoideae). It is native to southern India and Sri Lanka.
features
Vegetative characteristics
Ceropegia thwaitesii is a perennial upright plant with a bulbous rhizome. The moderately branched, bare, climbing shoots are 60 to 90 centimeters long. The membranous, bare leaves are opposite and stalked, the round stems can be up to 2.5 centimeters long. The shape of the leaf blade varies from ovate to ovate-lanceolate. They measure 3 to 4 inches (7.6 to 10.2 cm) in length and 1.5 to 2 inches (3.8 to 5.1 cm) in width. The edges can be covered with cilia . The leaf nerve is more clearly developed on the underside of the leaf blade than on the upper side. The underside is paler. Young shoots and leaves can be slightly reddish.
Inflorescence and flowers
The inflorescence is an umbel-shaped, three- to five-flowered cyme that arises from the leaf axils; the peduncle becomes up to 2.5 inches long. The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and five-fold with a double flower envelope. The five subtle sepals that are fused at their base reach up to about half the length of the cup. The five petals are fused to form a curved crown up to or occasionally over 5 centimeters (24 to 40 mm, up to 2.5 inches = 6.35 cm) high. The base ("kettle") is inflated to a spherical to obovate shape, measures 10 to 15 millimeters in length and 8 to 16 in diameter. Above the "kettle", the corolla tube tapers off sharply and is drawn out like a tube. The smallest diameter of the tube is roughly in the middle of the flowers. The upper end is widened like a goblet. It is speckled with dark red spots. The petal tips are comparatively long and take up about a third of the total length of the flower. The upright, oblong-egg-shaped, blunt-ended and bald lamina of the petal lobes are bent outwards along their longitudinal axis, and the ends are fused together. They form a cone with openwork at five points (or a "window flower"). A dark brown to almost dark purple band stretches across the cone above the center. Below the band the cone is yellowish, the ends of the petal lobes are greenish. The secondary crown is cup-shaped. The interstaminal (or outer) secondary crown consists of five upright, deeply incised, awl-like lobes, which are densely covered with cilia at the edges . The staminale (or inner) secondary crown has five upright, linear-spatula-shaped, bald lobes that are twice as long as the inner lobes.
Fruits and seeds
The follicles are 8 to 9 inches (10 inches) long. The seeds measure just under 1.3 cm ("½ inch").
Geographical distribution
The species occurs in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Nilgiri Mountains and the Pulney Mountains and in Sri Lanka ( Central Province ). In southern India it grows in the mountains in clearings in the evergreen, broad-leaved rainforest (Shola) ("Pambar shola" along the Pambar River in Tamil Nadu); the sites are between 1300 m and 2100 m above sea level.
Finding circumstances and history of the description
The seeds, from which the plant described later developed, were collected at an unnamed location in Sri Lanka by a Mr. Thwaites in 1851 and sent to England to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and sown there. The plant bloomed there in September 1853. William Jackson Hooker described it as a new species in Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Volume 80, Plate 4758 (plate + two unnumbered pages of text) in 1854 and named it in honor of the collector of the seeds George Henry Kendrick Thwaites , who later wrote the Enumeratio plantarum Zeylaniae .
In 1906 Nicholas Edward Hooker described in the Gardener 'Chronicle a hybrid between Ceropegia thwaitesii and Ceropegia sandersonii that happened by chance in the greenhouse .
Danger
Due to its very narrow ecological niche, the species is severely threatened by habitat destruction. Indian scientists succeeded in propagating the species in vitro in 2012, which may be important for further studies of the species.
Medical importance
Many species of the genus Ceropegia produce medicinally interesting substances. Indian scientists used leaf extracts of the species for the plant-mediated synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNP). The synthesized AgNPs were round with a diameter of about 100 nm . Attached to the AgNP were secondary amines and vinyl-like groups. The plant-mediated synthesized AgNP showed an effective antimicrobial activity against Salmonella and Bacillus subtilis .
supporting documents
literature
- William Jackson Hooker: Ceropegia Thwaitesii Mr. Thwaites's Ceropegia. In: Curtis's Botanical Magazine , 3rd series, Volume 10, 1854, Tab. 4758 (2 pages of text and a color plate), London
- Herbert FJ Huber: Revision of the genus Ceropegia. In: Memórias da Sociedade Broteriana , Volume 12, 1957, pp. 1–203, Coimbra (description by C. thwaitesii, pp. 71/2)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d Joseph Dalton Hooker: The flora of British India. 4. Asclepiadeae to Amarantaceae. 780 pp., London a. a., Reeve 1885 Online at biodiversitylibrary.org (p. 71)
- ↑ a b Huber (1957: p. 71/2).
- ^ A b Philip Furley Fyson: The flora of the Nilgiri and Pulney Hill-tops. Madras, Supt., Govt. Press, 1915-1920 [online at biodiversitylibrary.org] (pp. 286 and 426).
- ↑ George Henry Kendrick Thwaites: Enumeratio plantarum Zeylaniae: An Enumeration of Ceylon Plants, with Descriptions of the New and Little-Known Genera an Species, Observations on Their Habitats, Uses, Native Names etc. Assisted in the identification on the species and synonymy by JD Hooker. VIII + 483 pp., London, Dulau, 1864.
- ^ Nicholas Edward Brown: New or Noteworthy Plants. In: The Gardeners' chronicle: a weekly illustrated journal of horticulture and allied subjects , Volume, 1906, pp. 383–384 Online at www.biodiversitylibrary.org (p. 384)
- ↑ a b c S. Muthukrishnan, JH Franklin Benjamin, M. Muthukumar, N. Ahamedsherif, T. Senthil kumar, MV Rao: In vitro propagation of Ceropegia thwaitesii Hook - an endemic species of Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India. In: African Journal of Biotechnology , Volume 11, No. 59, 2012, pp. 12277-12285, doi : 10.5897 / AJB11.3401 ISSN 1684-5315
- ↑ S. Muthukrishnan, S. Bhakya, T. Senthil Kumar, MV Rao: Biosynthesis, characterization and antibacterial effect of plant-mediated silver nanoparticles using Ceropegia thwaitesii - An endemic species. Industrial Crops and Products, 63: 119-124, January 2015, doi : 10.1016 / j.indcrop.2014.10.022
