Monococcus echinophorus
| Monococcus echinophorus | ||||||||||||
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Monococcus echinophorus , illustration |
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Monococcus | ||||||||||||
| F. Garbage. | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Monococcus echinophorus | ||||||||||||
| F. Garbage. |
Monococcus echinophorus is the only plant species of the genus Monococcus from the family of the Pokeweed (Phytolaccaceae). It is native to Australia and the Pacific Islands.
description
Monococcus echinophorus grows as a shrub with heights of 1 to 3 meters. The bark of young twigs is finely hairy. The alternate leaves are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The petiole is between 5 and 15 millimeters long. The egg-shaped to lanceolate leaf blade with a length of 3 to 10 centimeters and a width of 1 to 3 centimeters has a smooth to irregularly notched and corrugated leaf margin.
Monococcus echinophorus is monoecious ( monocyte ) or dioecious ( diocyte ) separate sexes. The flowers are in a terminal or lateral, drooping racemose inflorescence , which extends up to the fruiting time, then as an infructescence, up to 25 centimeters in length. The flowers stand on short flower stalks in the axils of two bracts. The always unisexual flowers are only 2 to 3 millimeters long. The four bracts are white. The male flowers contain ten to twenty stamens . The female flowers contain a single carpel .
The 4 to 6 millimeter long achenes are covered with hooks like burrs, initially green, then brown and contain only one seed. Monococcus echinophorus blooms in the Australian winter.
Occurrence
Monococcus echinophorus occurs in New South Wales and Queensland in Australia near the coast in the subtropical rainforest or along the coastal banks of rivers. Some other finds come from the offshore Pacific islands. It is rare in its habitats and endemic to the Australian east coast.
Systematics
The genus Monococcus was established in July 1858 by Ferdinand von Mueller in the Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae , Volume 1 first described . Their specific epithet echinophorus refers to the hooked fruits and means “hedgehog-bearing”.
swell
- Genus and species in the New South Wales Flora Online . (Section Description and Occurrence)
Individual evidence
Supplementary literature
- PF Vanvinckenroye, Louis P. Ronse Decraene, Erik F. Smets: The floral development of Monococcus echinophorus (Phytolaccaceae) . In: Canadian Journal of Botany. 75, pp. 1941-1950.
- Steven Jansen, Louis P. Ronse Decraene, Erik Smets: On the Wood and Stem Anatomy of Monococcus echinophorus (Phytolaccaceae sl) In: Systematics and Geography of Plants. Vol. 70, No. 1, 2000, pp. 171-179.
