Eremospatha

Eremospatha
Systematics
Class :	Bedecktsamer (Magnoliopsida)
	Monocots
	Commelinids
Order :	Palm- like arecales
Family :	Palm family (Arecaceae)
Genre :	Eremospatha
Scientific name
	Eremospatha
	( G. Mann & H. Wendl. ) Schaedtler

Eremospatha is a climbing palm genus native to tropical Africa. The calyx and crown of the hermaphroditic flowers are noticeably thick.

features

The representatives are multi-stemmed, high-climbing rattan palms with pinnate leaves. They bloom several times and are hermaphroditic. The trunk has long internodes and is circular in cross section. Younger trunks are thinner than older ones. Shoots develop in the leaf axils.

The number of chromosomes is unknown.

leaves

The leaves are pinnate, in young plants bifid (two-part). They have a terminal tendril . The leaf sheath is an unreinforced tube, striped lengthways, sometimes hairy. The ochrea is showy, tight fitting and trimmed. A leaf stalk is formed on young stems and is absent on older, climbing stems. The rachis is usually occupied with bent back spines. Sit in pairs bent back at the vine Akanthophylle . There are few to numerous leaflets, most of which are simply folded. In young plants, the leaves are sometimes undivided. The leaflets are covered with spines along the thickened edges. The lowest few leaflets are usually much smaller than the rest and are heavily reinforced.

Inflorescences

The inflorescences point outwards and are branched once. The side branches are horizontal. The peduncle lies within the leaf sheath of its bract and extends slightly beyond its opening. It is not fused with the internode located above the bract. All bracts in the inflorescence are very inconspicuous. A cover sheet should be missing. Bracts on the peduncle are missing. The inflorescence axis is much longer than the stalk. The bracts located on it are flat, triangular. The side axes are fused with the main axis over a short distance. They stand distich (two rows). There are also very small bracts at a distance, in each of the armpits a pair of identical flowers without bracts .

blossoms

The flowers are pale and very fragrant. The calyx is thick, leathery and weakly three-lobed. The crown is also thick, leathery and divided into three triangular, valvate lobes for a quarter to a third of the length . The six stamens are united to form a massive, fleshy, epipetal ring and largely cover the entrance to the flower and encompass the gynoeceum . The free part of the stamens is very short, as are the anthers and somewhat arrow-shaped. The gynoeceum consists of three fused carpels , contains three ovules , is round, covered with scales and has a columnar to narrowed stylus with three scars at the tip . The ovules are basal and anatropic .

The pollen is ellipsoidal and bisymmetrical. The germ opening is a distal sulcus . The longest axis is 32 to 63 microns long.

Fruits and seeds

The fruit contains one to three seeds. The remnants of the stigma are very small and apical, the flower envelope is also preserved. The exocarp is covered with vertical rows of reddish-brown scales. The mesocarp is fleshy to maturity, an endocarp is not differentiated. The seeds sit subbasally, their shape is - depending on the number of seeds per fruit - a third, hemisphere or full sphere or ellipsoid.

Distribution and locations

The representatives occur in the humid rainforests from West Africa to the Congo Basin and in the east to Tanzania. Most often they grow in rainforests on swampy soils.

Systematics

The genus Eremospatha (G.Mann & H.Wendl.) Schaedtler is placed within the family Arecaceae in the subfamily Calamoideae , Tribe Lepidocaryeae , Subtribus Ancistrophyllinae . She is the sister group of Laccosperma . The monophyly of the genus has not yet been investigated (as of 2008).

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's World Checklist of Selected Plant Families recognizes the following species:

Eremospatha barendii Sunderl. : The homeland is southwestern Cameroon.
Eremospatha cabrae (De Wild. & T.Durand) De Wild. : The home is the tropical West Africa and the tropical Central Africa.
Eremospatha cuspidata (G.Mann & H.Wendl.) H.Wendl. : The homeland is tropical West Africa and tropical central Africa to Zambia .
Eremospatha dransfieldii Sunderl. : The home is from Sierra Leone to Gambia.
Eremospatha haullevilleana De Wild. : The home is tropical Africa.
Eremospatha hookeri (G.Mann & H.Wendl.) H.Wendl. : The home is Liberia and Nigeria to the Congo area.
Eremospatha laurentii De Wild. : The homeland is the western tropical and the central tropical Africa.
Eremospatha macrocarpa Schaedtler : The home is the western tropical and the central tropical Africa.
Eremospatha quinquecostulata Becc. : The home is the southeastern Nigeria to Cameroon.
Eremospatha tessmanniana Becc. : The home is Central Africa and Cameroon.
Eremospatha wendlandiana Dammer ex Becc. : The homeland extends from southeastern Nigeria to central Africa.

The name Eremospatha is composed of the Greek words for without and spathe and refers to the lack of conspicuous bracts in the inflorescence.

Fossil history

An incompletely preserved leaflet with a single spine from the Oligocene of Ethiopia was assigned to the genus as Eremospatha chigaensis by the authors .

supporting documents

John Dransfield, Natalie W. Uhl, Conny B. Asmussen, William J. Baker, Madeline M. Harley, Carl E. Lewis: Genera Palmarum. The Evolution and Classification of Palms . Second edition, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2008, ISBN 978-1-84246-182-2 , pp. 150-152.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Eremospatha. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved July 31, 2018.

Web links

Eremospatha on the homepage of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

[WCSP-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Eremospatha. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved July 31, 2018.