Innsbruck pasque flower

Innsbruck pasque flower
	Innsbruck pasque flower ( Pulsatilla oenipontana )
Systematics
Order :	Buttercups (Ranunculales)
Family :	Buttercup Family (Ranunculaceae)
Subfamily :	Ranunculoideae
Tribe :	Anemoneae
Genre :	Pasque Flower ( Pulsatilla )
Type :	Innsbruck pasque flower
Scientific name
	Pulsatilla oenipontana
	Dalla Torre & Sarnth.

The Innsbruck pasque flower ( Pulsatilla oenipontana ) is a taxonomically controversial plant species from the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae).

description

The perennial plants have a rhizome whose length and degree of branching are variable. The two to six basal leaves are simply pinnate and arranged in a rosette. Often they are not fully developed at the time of flowering. The leaves have 80 to 120 sections that are 4 to 7 millimeters wide. In general, the inflorescence is reduced to one flower. The mostly purple, red to dark purple flower is formed by a simple perigone , which is usually composed of six tepals of the same size and color intensity, the number of which, however, can vary. When they ripen, they produce a collective fruit, which is composed of many individual fruits, solitary nuts. The long, very hairy "fruit tails" are created by the outgrowth of the stylus during fruit ripening and serve as a spreading and drilling organ.

distribution

This endemic species occurs only in the area around Innsbruck in limestone grasslands (or semi-arid grasslands ). It is likely to have originated after the Ice Age through hybridization of the common pasque flower ( Pulsatilla vulgaris ), which is common from Germany to southern Sweden, Switzerland and France, with the pasque flower ( Pulsatilla grandis ), which is common in Eastern Europe, in the border area of these two tetraploid species in the Inn Valley .

However, some authors also hit the clan with the bells and whistles of the neighboring Bavarian Alpine foothills

Danger

Although the Innsbruck pasque flower has been protected since 1939, it is now one of the most endangered plant species in North Tyrol. The total stock of the small populations at Arzl, Rum and Thaur decreased from about 1600 flowering individuals to only about 180 between 1990 and 2000. Responsible for the endangerment is, on the one hand, the expansion of the settlement area, as a result of which numerous growth sites have become extinct, and, on the other hand, the change in agricultural practice, which was accompanied by the fertilization of manure, liquid manure and mineral fertilizers . There was no autumn grazing, so that slopes that are no longer used are increasingly covered with bushes . To preserve the clan, the 3490 m² nature reserve Innsbrucker Küchenschelle near Arzl was established in 1981 .

Taxonomy and systematics

Even the differentiation between the species Pulsatilla vulgaris and Pulsatilla grandis is difficult, as there are numerous unclearly defined transitional forms in addition to clearly distinguishable local clans. Since both clans can be crossed freely and without restriction and the genetic differentiation is also difficult, many taxonomists have switched to classifying both as subspecies of a broad species Pulsatilla vulgaris (or, alternatively, anemone pulsatilla ). The Innsbruck pasque flower, which earlier systematists often understood only as a subspecies or variety, is no longer considered a species, but as a, taxonomically meaningless, local clan of the common pasque flower. If one follows this view, the species name Pulsatilla oenipontana is a synonym .

supporting documents

^ Manfred A. Fischer, Karl Oswald, Wolfgang Adler: Excursion flora for Austria, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol . 3rd, improved edition. Province of Upper Austria, Biology Center of the Upper Austrian State Museums, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-85474-187-9 , p. 274 .
↑ Innsbrucker Ordinary Pasque Flower Botanical Information Node Bavaria, profiles on the vascular plants of Bavaria.
↑ Romed Josef Unterasinger & Brigitta Erschbamer (2002): Population Development of Innsbruck Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla oenipontana) and measures for their conservation. Reports of the Natural Science-Medical Association Innsbruck 89: 71–85.
↑ Protected areas in Tyrol: Innsbrucker Pasque Flower Nature Reserve . www.tiroler-schutzgebiete.at, the official website for the Tyrolean protected areas.
↑ Jelena Mlinarec, Damjan Franjević, Luka Bočkor, Višnja Besendorfer (2016): Diverse evolutionary pathways shaped 5S rDNA of species of tribe Anemoneae (Ranunculaceae) and reveal phylogenetic signal. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 182 (1): 80-99. doi: 10.1111 / boj.12452
↑ D. Aichele, H.‐W. Schwegler (1957): The taxonomy of the genus Pulsatilla. Feddes Repertory 60 (1-3): 1-230.
↑ Walter Zimmermann: Pulsatilla, Becoming and changing a genus (Genetic studies on Pulsatilla IX). Writings of the Association for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge in Vienna 103: 99–122. download
↑ z. B. Pulsatilla oenipontana in Hassler M. (2018). World Plants: Synonymic Checklists of the Vascular Plants of the World (version Dec 2017). In: Roskov Y., Abucay L., Orrell T., Nicolson D., Bailly N., Kirk PM, Bourgoin T., DeWalt RE, Decock W., De Wever A., Nieukerken E. van, Zarucchi J., Penev L., eds. (2018). Species 2000 & ITIS Catalog of Life, 28th March 2018. Digital resource at www.catalogueoflife.org/col. Species 2000: Naturalis, Leiden, the Netherlands.