Galmei plants
As Galmeipflanzen (from calamine = zinc ore ) refers to high levels of zinc , often in combination with other heavy metals , especially adapted plant species. Galmei plants are therefore a special form of heavy metal plants or metallophytes . Vegetation with occurrence of Galmei plants, the so-called Galmeiflora , belongs to the heavy metal lawns .
Galmei plants, like other heavy metal plants, were already known to the miners of the early modern period, who used them as indicators of ore deposits . The Bavarian agronomist Anton Baumann first examined them scientifically in 1885. Today they are found in Europe mainly on the spoil heaps of the former ore mining, while primary deposits (on undisturbed sites that have not been influenced by humans) are very rare. European deposits are known, for example, in the Harz , in the Black Forest , in the Aachen area , in the Alps and the Pyrenees as well as from Great Britain , always island-like in the places where ore was previously mined.
Zinc is an essential nutrient in small amounts, which is essential for the formation of various enzymes , for example , but in higher doses it is toxic to most plant species . Galmei plants achieve resistance to high zinc contents in the soil in two ways: on the one hand, they can specifically prevent the uptake of zinc ions from the soil solution (partly through symbiosis with certain mycorrhizal fungi), on the other hand, they have a higher level of zinc than ingested and accumulated in the plant Resistance, so that they can enrich the metal longer and in higher doses without being damaged. In normal locations, they cannot compete with other plants because they stay low and grow very slowly.
The calamine plants include:
- Yellow calamine violet ( Viola calaminaria ): Endemic to the Aachen-Stolberg ore district.
- Violet calamine pansy ( Viola guestphalica ): Endemic to the former ore mines in Blankenrode (Westphalia)
- Calamine Hellerkraut ( Noccaea caerulescens subsp. Calaminaris ): North West Germany, Netherlands, Belgium.
- Calamine spring Miere ( Minuartia verna subsp. Hercynica ): first found in the Harz Mountains, but also near Paderborn, near Aachen and in East Belgium.
- Calamine carnation ( Armeria maritima subsp. Halleri ): in the Aachen ore district, in Belgium and near Bottendorf (Thuringia)
- Haller cress ( Arabidopsis halleri , syn. Cardaminopsis halleri )
Zinc-tolerant local clans ( ecotypes ) are known from some other plant species such as pigeon goiter ( Silene vulgaris ), red ostrich grass ( Agrostis capillaris ) and wiry Schmiele ( Avenella flexuosa ). Among the woody plants there are moderately zinc-tolerant local clusters of birch and willow species.
The Galmei plants are locally created clans of more widespread and more frequent species, which were able to adapt to heavy metal locations in a relatively short time (neo-demites). The evolution of these species probably took only a few thousand, possibly only a few hundred years.
literature
- Ursula Hoffmann and Michael Schwerdtfeger: ... and the golden tree of life. Pleasure trips and educational trips in the realm of plants. Ulrich Burgdorf Verlag, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-89762-000-6 .
Web links
- Calamine turf, Violetum calaminariae. Rhenish plant communities on Schmitzen's botany side . July 2000, edited by Joachim Schmitz.
Individual evidence
- ^ Matthias Schaefer: Dictionary of Ecology. Springer-Verlag 2012. ISBN 978-3-8274-2562-1 ; Entry “Galmei plant” on page 98
- ↑ Wolfgang Punz (2004): From the ore plants to the metallophytes. Yearbook of the Federal Geological Institute 144 (1): 101-104.
- ↑ Anton Baumann (1885): The behavior of zinc salts towards plants and in the soil (The agricultural experimental stations, vol. 31) 53rd pages.
- ↑ Galmeipflanzen in the Lexikon der Biologie, www.spektrum.de, accessed on April 25, 2016.
- ↑ a b Wilfried HO Ernst (2006): Evolution of metal tolerance in higher plants. Forest, Snow and Landscape Research 80 (3): 251-274.