Coccinia sessilifolia
| Coccinia sessilifolia | ||||||||||||
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Male plant of Coccinia sessilifolia |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Coccinia sessilifolia | ||||||||||||
| ( Sond. ) Cogn. |
Coccinia sessilifolia is a plant from the cucurbitaceae family from southern Africa.
features
Coccinia sessilifolia is a perennial herbaceous climbing plant with up to 5 m long stem axes . The species forms a perennial woody hypocotyl tuber . The stem is frosted waxy blue-green and does not become woody. The leaves are alternate, simple and usually sessile. However, the first leaves of the shoot still have a short petiole and in rare cases the leaves of older plants can also have a short petiole. The leaf blade is glabrous, waxy blue-green, 1.5–12.5 × 2.2–13.5 cm in size, often deeply palmate, rarely only slightly lobed. Coccinia sessilifolia has simple (or only in very rare cases two-part) tendrils. Probracts up to 1.7 mm long are located at the nodes and often fall off prematurely.
The species is dioecious separately sexed ( diocesan ). The flowers are in both sexes usually solitary in leaf axils, male flowers in few-flowered panicles . Flowers are five-fold and the calyx and crown are each and fused together. The lobes of the calyx are 1.5 to 3.5 mm long. The corolla is 1.5 to 3 cm long and pale yellow to cream-colored. The three stamens of the male flower are fused into a column with a spherical anthers head .
The ovary has three parts, inferior and carries numerous ovules. There is a stylus with three bulging scars . In female flowers there are three small sterile stamens (staminodes).
The fruit is a fleshy, (scarlet) red armored berry 8 to 12 cm long, 3 to 4 cm in diameter and elongated-elliptical shape. The seeds have a size of 6–8 × 3–3.5 × 1–1.5 mm, are more or less symmetrically ovoid and have a flat surface.
Both sexes each have (2 n =) 24 chromosomes of the same type.
distribution
The species is mainly found in the dry areas of southern Africa, except in the extreme deserts, mountains and the Cape region. It occurs between 300 and 1500 m altitude in South Africa , Namibia and Botswana .
use
Unripe fruits are partly baked and eaten in ashes, ripe fruits are partly edible, but bitter-tasting fruits can also be expected due to cucurbitacins .
Systematics and evolution
According to molecular analysis, Coccinia sessilifolia appears to be related to some other species of southern Africa, such as Coccinia hirtella , Coccinia mackenii and Coccinia quinqueloba . Some populations of South African Coccinia from western Limpopo Province , which have long-stalked leaves but are otherwise indistinguishable from Coccinia sessilifolia , were once described as Coccinia variifolia A.Meeuse . Holstein (2015) concluded from the great similarities and close relationship in a molecular analysis that these populations are better to be considered as a variety of Coccinia sessilifolia with the name Coccinia sessilifolia var. Variifolia (A. Meeuse) Holstein . Since long-stalked leaves occur in all others of the closer evolutionary relationship, Coccinia sessilifolia var. Variifolia could either represent a relic of ancestors or represent a secondary re-establishment of an old trait.
literature
- N. Holstein: Monograph of Coccinia (Cucurbitaceae) . In: PhytoKeys . 54, 2015, pp. 1–166. doi : 10.3897 / phytokeys.54.3285 . PMID 26312043 . PMC 4547038 (free full text).
