Button mangrove
| Button mangrove | ||||||||||||
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Button mangrove ( Conocarpus erectus ) |
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| Conocarpus erectus | ||||||||||||
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The button mangrove ( Conocarpus erectus ) is a salt-tolerant winged plant from the tropical coastal areas of West Africa from Senegal to Angola , southern and central Florida, the Caribbean islands and the coast of Central and South America . In the Pacific, the southernmost occurrence is near Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands , in the Atlantic on the coast of Brazil . The species is more likely to be found in the fringes of mangrove forests and also grows outside the intertidal zone . Salty soils and salty spray are tolerated, however.
description
Conocarpus erectus is a semi-evergreen and often with multiple stems, up to 7-8 meters high tree with some broad crown or a shrub with cracked, brown and rough bark . The button mangrove does not form any roots of breath .
The simple, short-stalked, more or less tomentose to almost bare leaves are lanceolate, elliptical to obovate and have a rounded or pointed apex ; they are arranged in a spiral. The petiole, with two glands, is up to 1.5 centimeters long and the entire, 1.5-3 centimeters wide leaves 3.5-8 centimeters.
Conocarpus erectus is functionally dioecious dioecious . The axillary or terminal and racemose inflorescence is not very branched. The functionally unisexual, very small flowers , each with a hairy, small bract , with a simple flower cover , are densely packed in very small, cone -like , head-like structures. The cup-shaped perianth of five sepals is five-lobed, the petals are missing. The vestigial in the male flower ovary is inferior. The male flowers have 5-10 protruding stamens and the female 5 staminodes . There is a lobed, hairy discus .
The many flat, single and short-winged, scale-shaped fruits are nuts that are released when the small, red-brown fruit cluster , head, disintegrates . The fruits are buoyant.
Systematics
The button mangrove belongs to the genus Conocarpus in the winged family (Combretaceae). Besides Conocarpus erectus only one other species, Conocarpus lancifolius, belongs to the genus. Conocarpus lancifolius is found only in some river valleys in northern Somalia .
literature
- Harri Lorenzi: Árvores Brasileiras. Vol. 3, Instituto Plantarum, 2009, 2011, ISBN 85-86714-33-7 , p. 96, online at StuDocu.
- Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck: Trees of the tropics. 2006, Nikol Verlagsges., ISBN 3-937873-79-1 .
- PB Tomlinson: The Botany of Mangroves. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1986, ISBN 0-521-46675-X , pp. 237 f.
Web links
- Conocarpus erectus in Flora of the Guianas (illustration).
- Conocarpus erectus on plantsystematics.org (pictures).