Mauritia (plant genus)
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Buriti palm ( Mauritia flexuosa ), habitus |
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Mauritia is a palm genus native to tropical South America. The Buriti palm ( Mauritia flexuosa ) is a regionally important crop from this genus.
features
The representatives are massive, single-stemmed, diocesan tree-shaped palms. The trunk is upright, covered in the upper part by the dried up leaf sheaths, then free at the bottom. The bark is hard, the pulp is soft.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 30.
leaves
The leaves are fan-shaped, large, reduplicate and short costapalmat. The leaf sheath is initially tubular and tears open opposite the petiole . Coarse fibers sometimes sit at the edges. The petiole is conspicuous, on the upper side (adaxial) it is grooved at the base, otherwise circular in cross section. It is smooth and unreinforced. The leaf blade is circular and along the abaxial folds divided into numerous, simply folded segments almost to the base. The midribs are clear.
Inflorescences
Only one inflorescence is formed. He stands between the sheets. Male and female inflorescences are superficially similar. The cover sheet is short, tubular, two-keeled and has two short triangular lobes. The peduncle is shorter than the inflorescence axis . It is elliptical in cross-section and has numerous, overlapping, distich, tubular bracts. The bracts on the inflorescence axis are numerous, cover the side axes as a sheath, are distant, each has a hanging to protruding side axis of the first order. On the side axes of the first order there is a short, double-keeled, tubular cover leaf and one to a few empty distich bracts, followed by tubular, short bracts, each bearing a short to medium-length, straight or curved rachilla. The male rachilla is kitten-like .
blossoms
The male flowers have a calyx tube with three short calyx lobes. The calyx is often densely scaled. The three petals are long, protrude clearly beyond the calyx, are valvate , leathery and short at the base. The six stamens have free, thick stamens. The anthers are long, basifix and latrors. The stamp rudiment is very small. The pollen grains are spherical and symmetrical. The germ opening is either a large distal pore or a short germ fold (sulcus). The longest axis is 54 to 65 micrometers long.
The female flowers are larger than the male. The calyx is tubular, briefly three-lobed and often densely covered with scales. The crown is up to half tubular in the lower third, the rest are three long lobes. The six staminodes are laterally fused with each other over the flat, wide stamens and fused with the crown at the end of the corolla tube. The gynoeceum is triple with three ovules . It is rounded, with vertical rows of bent back scales. The stylus is short and conical, it has three scars . The ovules are anatropic and set basal.
Fruits and seeds
The fruit is round, very large and usually solitary. The scar remains are apical. The exocarp is covered with many vertical rows of reddish-brown scales. The mesocarp is rather thick and fleshy, the endocarp is not differentiated. The seed is round, starts near the base and has a blunt beak apically. The seed coat is thin, the endosperm is homogeneous. The embryo is basal.
Distribution and locations
The two species are found in the Amazon basin and adjacent areas: Trinidad, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil. They colonize the wetter areas here. They often form extensive natural populations in periodically flooded areas of the lowlands.
Systematics
The genus Mauritia L.f. is placed within the family Arecaceae in the subfamily Calamoideae , the tribe Lepidocaryeae and the subtribe Mauritiinae. The monophyly of the genus has not yet been investigated.
Two species are recognized in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
- Mauritia Carana Wallace
- Buriti palm ( Mauritia flexuosa L.f. ).
The generic name Mauritia honors Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen (1604–1679), governor of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil.
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. 161-165.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Mauritia. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved November 1, 2009.
Web links
- Mauritia on the homepage of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden