Leopoldinia
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Leopoldinia is a palm genus native to South America. She is the only representative of the tribe Leopoldinieae . Their eye-catching leaf sheaths and their triple gynoeceum allow them to be clearly distinguished from their closest relatives.
features
The representatives are moderately large, single-stemmed or group-growing, unreinforced palms. They bloom several times and are single-sexed ( monoecious ) or rarely double-sexed ( dioecious ). The trunk is erect and covered with the fibers of the dead leaf sheaths . Later he becomes bald. The trunk reaches heights of 2 to 10 m. The internodes are short and have numerous adventitious roots at the base of the trunk .
The number of chromosomes is unknown.
leaves
The leaves are pinnate and remain on the plant after they die (marzescence). The leaf sheath has a triangular, ligula- like extension opposite the petiole . The leaf sheath is densely hairy. It enlarges and dries into a network of broad, flat fibers, the edges remaining intact; or they disintegrate completely into very long, black fiber bundles, called piassava , which hang down from the trunk and cover it. The petiole is clearly pronounced, depending on the species, it is 31 to 150 cm long. The top is flattened or convex, the bottom is rounded or angular. The stem bears numerous, decrepit scales. The rachis is longer than the stem, depending on the species, 48 to 330 cm long. It is angular on the top, rounded or flattened on the underside and scaly like the stem.
The leaflets are simply folded, linear, pointed or with a short two-part end. Depending on the species, there are 12 to 65 leaflets per leaf side. They are arranged regularly, glabrous on top, hairy on the underside along the ribs.
Inflorescences
The inflorescences are between the leaves (interfoliar), individually and are much shorter than the leaves. They are four-fold and as a whole have thick brown hairs. The male inflorescences alternate with female ones; or the lower flower-bearing partial inflorescences bear female and the upper male flowers; or each flower-bearing axis (rachilla) has female flowers below and male flowers above. The plants are seldom diocesan.
The inflorescence stalk is long, partially covered by the leaf sheaths of the bract, and has a narrow crescent-shaped cross section. The cover sheet starts well above the base, is tubular, narrowly elliptical in outline, two-winged, rather membranous, and tears during development along the entire length. All that remains is a low-skinned collar. There is a bract on the inflorescence axis, this resembles the cover sheet and also falls off early. The inflorescence axis is usually significantly shorter than the stem. The side axes of the first order are usually quite slender, each standing in the axilla of a very small, membranous triangular bract. The lateral axes of the second, third and fourth order are slender.
blossoms
The male flowers are very small, almost spherical and have a striped, stiff bracteole . The three sepals are free, rounded, striped and imbricat . The three petals are free, valvate , triangular-ovate, and on the adaxial side the impressions of the anthers stand out . The six stamens are very small, their filaments are very short and only connected to each other at the base. They are rather broad, slightly curved at the tip. The anthers are oval in outline and open to latrors. The rudiment of the stamp is barrel-shaped. The pollen is ellipsoidal and slightly asymmetrical. The germ opening is a distal sulcus. The longest axis measures 21 to 26 µm.
The female flowers are larger than the male. The three sepals are free, imbricat, rounded and have a cap. The edges are serrated. The three petals are free and valvate. The six staminodes are free, very small, short and flat. The gynoeceum is triple with three ovules , approximately pyramidal. The three scars are more concealed and seated.
Fruits and seeds
When ripe, the fruits are dull red, egg-shaped, slightly flattened on the sides, or they are lenticular or disc-shaped. The fruits are solitary and develop from a single carpel. The perianth remains on the ripe fruit, as do the remains of stigmas and the remains of the sterile carpels. The exocarp is smooth, the mesocarp consists of several network-shaped systems of thick, anatomical fibers embedded in a fleshy parenchyma . The fibers become more numerous and denser towards the center of the fruit. The endocarp is thin and smooth on the inside.
The seed is round or lenticular. He sits across from the remains of the scar. A vertical umbilicus (hilum) runs along one of the lateral surfaces. The endosperm is homogeneous. The embryo sits subbasally.
Distribution and locations
Both species of the genus occur in the Amazon basin : western Brazil , Amazonian Columbia and southern Venezuela . All species are restricted to low-lying, regularly flooded tropical rainforests. Spruce (1871) gives banks of blackwater rivers and rocky islands as locations for Leopoldinia pulchra and Leopoldinia major, and deep, sandy areas for Leopoldinia piassaba .
Systematics
The genus Leopoldinia Mart. is placed within the Arecaceae family in the Arecoideae subfamily and alone forms the tribe Leopoldinieae. The monophyly of the genus has not yet been investigated. The systematic position of the tribe within the Arecoideae is uncertain. It is always assigned to the core group ( core arecoid clade ) within the Arecoideae , but its exact position is still open.
In the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew , the following types are recognized:
- Leopoldinia piassaba Wallace
- Leopoldinia pulchra Mart.
Leopoldinia was first described by Martius in 1824 , the type species is Leopoldinia pulchra . The genus was named after Maria Leopoldine of Austria , Archduchess of Austria and Empress of Brazil. Her father had financed an expedition to Brazil during which Martius picked up palm trees.
Martius had described two species from the Amazon, Leopoldinia pulchra and Leopoldinia insignis . However, the description of the second species is based on the mixing of parts of plants of two species. Leopoldinia insignis was declared a synonym of Leopoldinia pulchra by Henderson in 1995 .
Two other species were described in 1853 by Alfred Russel Wallace from the Rio Negro , Leopoldinia major and Leopoldinia piassaba . The descriptions are not based on herbarium material and contain few botanical details. Leopoldinia piassaba can be clearly identified due to the conspicuous leaf sheath fibers. However, the other two species, Leopoldinia pulchra and Leopoldinia major , were often confused.
Spruce listed them as separate species in 1869 and gave them detailed descriptions. Drude followed him in the first genre revision in 1881. Wessels Boer only recognized Leopoldinia major and Leopoldinia piassaba as species. With Kubitzki 1991 and Henderson 1995 there were again three types. Henderson separated Leopoldinia major and Leopoldinia pulchra based on fruit size and shape, leaflet characteristics, stem clusters and leaf sheaths. Guánchez 1997 recognized three species, while Guánchez and Romero 1995 could not find any plants of this species at the potential locations of L. major in Venezuela and assigned the existing specimens to L. pulchra .
Among more recent works, Leopoldinia major recognize Govaerts and Dransfield in their World Checklist of Palms (2005), Hokche, Berry, and Huber in the Nuevo Catálogo de la Flora Vascular de Venezuela (2008), and Lorenzi, Noblick, Kahn and Ferreira in Brazilian Flora Arecaceae (Palms) (2010). As a synonym of Leopoldinia pulchra , the art Bernal and Rodrigo (2010) and Govaerts lead in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families .
literature
- 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. 486-488.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Andrew Henderson: A revision of Leopoldinia (Arecaceae) . Phytotaxa, Volume 32, 2011, pp. 1–17 (online pdf; 1.9 MB)
- ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Leopoldinia. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved August 6, 2018.
- ↑ Rodrigo Bernal, Gloria Galeano: Notes on Mauritiella, Manicaria and Leopoldinia . Palms, Volume 54, 2010, pp. 119-132.
- ↑ Leopoldinia major accepted in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families , accessed July 8, 2013.
- ^ Leopoldinia major not accepted in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families , accessed July 8, 2013.
- ↑ Leopoldinia major Overview in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families , accessed July 8, 2013.