Daboecia cantabrica
| Daboecia cantabrica | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Daboecia cantabrica |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Daboecia | ||||||||||||
| D. Don | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Daboecia cantabrica | ||||||||||||
| ( Huds. ) K. Koch |
Daboecia cantabrica is the only species of the monotypic genus Daboecia that belongs to the heather family (Ericaceae). The German name of the species is mainly Irish heather , more rarely gloss heather or St. Dabeoc's heather . The genus is named after St. Dabeoc from Lough Derg, an Irish saint .
features
Daboecia cantabrica is a woody dwarf shrub with heights of up to about 60 centimeters. The bushes are branched, the individual shoots upright. The evergreen leaves are oval to lanceolate, with entire margins and with a rolled-up edge, about 6 to 12 millimeters long, dark green and shiny on the top, white on the underside with a thick felt felt. The pink flowers are hanging on long, terminal inflorescences, the flower stalks are densely covered with glandular hairs and shorter than the flower. The overgrown calyx is four columns. The bulbous, bell-shaped corolla has four teeth at the tip, and is strikingly large at 12 to 15 millimeters in length. The plant thus resembles a bell heather (genus Erica ) with very large flowers. It differs u. a. through the alternate leaves. The population in the Azores , which used to be considered a separate species, is now predominantly a subspecies (subsp. Azorica ). It differs mainly in the slightly smaller flowers.
Distribution and location
The plant occurs in three distant (disjoint) sub-areas. In Ireland it grows in a small area in Counties Galway and Mayo in the west of the island. A larger area exists in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, in northern Spain and Portugal, with a distribution center in the Cantabrian Mountains . Daboecia cantabrica is a species of the Atlantic dwarf shrub heather (Spanish: "brezales"). It grows exclusively on acidic, nutrient-poor soils with an Atlantic climate, with mild, frost-free winters and very high amounts of precipitation, not less than 1000 mm. It is considered a character species of the Atlantic dwarf shrub heather (class Calluno-Ulicetea), in Spain an association Daboecio-Ulicetum gallii has been described, as whose character it is considered. The species is not uncommon in suitable locations within its area. In addition to its occurrence in heather areas, the species grows less often in thinned oak forests and on the edges of forests.
use
Under the names Irish Heath or Irish Bell Heath , the species is used as an ornamental shrub because of its decorative flowers. There are numerous cultivated forms. A cultivated form that has been produced as a hybrid of Irish and Azorean plants (Daboecia x scotica) is widely used. The species is hardy to a limited extent in Central Europe, it freezes back in hard winters.
swell
- RJ Woodell: Daboecia cantabrica. Biological Flora of the British Isles No. 286. Journal of Ecology Vol. 46, no. 1 (Mar., 1958), pp. 205-216.
- Loidi, Javier; Biurrun, Idoia; Campos, Juan Antonio; García-Mijangos, Itziar; Herrera, Mercedes A survey of heath vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Morocco: a biogeographic and bioclimatic approach. Phytocoenologia, Volume 37, Numbers 3-4, December 2007, pp. 341-370.
