Ornithogalum insulare
| Ornithogalum insulare | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ornithogalum insulare | ||||||||||||
| Kypriotakis , Antaloudaki & Tzanoudakis |
Ornithogalum insular is a plant from the family of asparagus plants (Asparagaceae). So far it is only known from three small islands off the coast of the Greek Aegean island of Crete.
description
The onions are ovate to ovoid-spherical, 4.5 to 7 centimeters long and 4 to 6 centimeters in diameter. The tunics are skinny; the outer ones are slightly brownish to dirty white, the inner ones are whitish. The shaft is strong, pedicel-round, more or less strongly curved, 60 to 90 (rarely up to 120) centimeters long and measures 5 to 7 (rarely up to 9) millimeters in diameter at the base. The 4 to 6, more rarely 7 leaves are shorter than the shaft, linear, 50 to 60 (rarely up to 75) centimeters long and 1.5 to 2.5 (rarely up to 3.5) centimeters wide. They are uniformly pale green, flat or slightly runny, with entire margins, hairless and narrow towards the tip. When the plants bloom, the leaves are almost withered.
The inflorescence consists of 35 to 47 (rarely up to 50) flowers. It is a dense, curved, cylindrical grape with a length of 22 to 40 (rarely up to 50) centimeters. When the fruit ripens, it extends to 27 to 45 (rarely up to 55) centimeters. The flower stalks are up to 45 millimeters long in the lower flowers and up to 20 millimeters long in the upper ones. At flowering time they are upright or protruding to protruding and at fruit ripeness almost upright to protruding, but never pressed against the axis of the inflorescence. The bracts are lanceolate, shorter than the pedicels, membranous, whitish, awl-shaped and almost cylindrical at their base. They have 5 to 12 dull greenish nerves, which are 2 to 5 millimeters wide at the base. The length of the nerves varies from 20 to 28 millimeters for the lower bracts to 8 to 11 millimeters for the upper bracts.
The flowers are more or less star-shaped and have a diameter of 20 to 30 (rarely up to 35) millimeters. The tepals are 12 to 18 × 4.5 to 5.5 millimeters in size, lanceolate-elliptical, with a papilose-glandular tip and longitudinally curled leaf margins. They are white to dirty white on the inside and dirty white to greenish white or occasionally with an inconspicuous, yellowish-green median stripe on the outside. They have 3 to 5 dull nerves that are 1.5 to 2 millimeters wide and neither reach the tip nor the base of the tepals. Furthermore, the tepals are slightly bent back, widened and remain even while the fruit is ripening. The stamens are white, 7 to 9 × 1.5 to 2 millimeters in size and more or less suddenly contracted into a short appendage. The anthers are 3.5 to 4.8 × 1.5 to 1.7 millimeters in size and dirty white. The ovary is almost spherical to cylindrical, 3 to 4 × 2.8 to 3.2 millimeters in size, greenish and hairless. The styles are white, 4 to 5.5 millimeters long and longer than the ovary. The scar is heady. The capsule fruits are egg-shaped and trimmed at the tip with three rounded edges, which are separated from each other by shallow furrows. The fruits are light brown and 12 to 14 × 9 to 10 millimeters in size. The seeds are 5 to 7 millimeters long and angular with a short, tongue-like appendage. The seed coat is black, slightly wrinkled and slightly papilous. The seeds germinate epigeously .
The flowering time is in late spring in May.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 44.
Occurrence
Ornithogalum insulare has so far only been identified from three small islands off the coast of the Greek island of Crete . Northeast of Psira and Konida in the Aegean Sea and south of Megalo Paximadi in the Libyan Sea . On Psira, three sub-populations with a total of about 150 plants are known, about 30 plants from Konida and a dozen from Megalo Paximadi. On Psira, Ornithogalum insulare grows on the slopes of low, rocky hills within Phrygana . The vegetation here consists of Thymbra capitata , Salvia fruticosa , Cynara cornigera , Muscari spreitzenhoferi and therophytes such as Bromus madritensis and Urospermum picroides .
Systematics
Ornithogalum insulare is a species within the genus of Milky Stars ( Ornithogalum ). It was first described in 2018 by Zacharias Kypriotakis , Eleftheria Antaloudaki and Dimitris Tzanoudakis in Botanica Serbica . The name insulare refers to the fact that the known distribution is limited to three small islands in the southern Aegean. The species shows morphological similarities with Ornithogalum creticum and Ornithogalum pyrenaicum from the subgenus Beryllis , but also with the species Ornithogalum visianicum, which is endemic to the Croatian island of Palagruža, and with Ornithogalum arcuatum , an element of the Irano-Turanian mountain flora.
Danger
In the Red List of the IUCN , the species has not yet started. Due to the small distribution area and the low population of less than 200 known individuals, the authors of the first description based on the criteria of the IUCN estimate that Ornithogalum insulare would probably be classified as "critically endangered" (threatened with extinction).
literature
- Zacharias Kypriotakis, Eleftheria Antaloudaki, Dimitris Tzanoudakis: Ornithogalum insulare (Hyacinthaceae): A new species from the Cretan area (S. Aegean, Greece) . Botanica Serbica, 41 (1), 2018, pp. 117-122 doi : 10.5281 / zenodo.1173566