Saracha
| Saracha | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Saracha | ||||||||||||
| Ruiz & Pav. |
The Saracha are a genus of plants in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). It contains only two species that occur from Central to South America.
description
Vegetative characteristics
Saracha grow as (1) 1.5 to 4 m high shrubs or as 6 to 10 m high small trees that can reach a trunk diameter of up to 20 cm. The strongly branched shoots grow upright and in exceptional cases are covered with spines. Young shoots are covered with brownish, tree-like branching emergences .
The leaves, which are sometimes almost opposite, are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The petioles are mostly glabrous, only occasionally hairy and usually 4 to 15 (1 to 4) mm long. The leathery to almost leathery simple leaf blades are usually 3 to 7.5 (1 to 15) cm in length and 0.5 to 4.5, rarely up to 6 cm, ovate, obovate or narrowly elliptical to elliptical and almost symmetrical. The spider tip is pointed, pointed or blunt to rounded. The leaf margin is smooth, occasionally curled up. The underside of the leaf is glabrous, bald or hairy; the trichomes are simple, branched, tree-shaped or glandular with one- or multicellular heads.
Inflorescences and flowers
The terminal or lateral inflorescences can contain a few (one to three) or many (four to eleven, occasionally up to 15) flowers . The flowers hang from 4 to 33 mm long peduncles.
The hermaphroditic flowers have a double flower envelope . The usually five-fold, occasionally four-fold calyx is bell-shaped and 2 to 7, occasionally up to 10 mm long. It has a leathery consistency, the calyx lobes are occasionally unevenly shaped, wider than long and shorter than the corolla tube. The calyx is covered with simple or glandular trichomes, the glandular trichomes consist of a two- or three-celled stem and a multicellular head. The crown is tubular-funnel-shaped or broadly bell-shaped and has a length of 15 to 25, rarely up to 35 mm. It is purple to yellowish in color and covered with purple or brown dots. The inside of the crown is covered with a multitude of short, simple, multicellular trichomes at the base, partially up to the middle of the crown. There is a circle with five stamens . The stamens are significantly longer than the anthers and in exceptional cases slightly different lengths. The anthers are fixed to the base and rarely 2 to mostly 3.5 to 5 mm long. The pollen has a size of 20 to 23 µm, the three furrows are on the pollen equator (trizonocolpat), the pollen outer wall (exine) is reticulated. The ovary is almost conical in shape. The flower has nectaries arranged in a circle . The upside-down awl-shaped stylus is terminal, the stigma is moist.
Fruits and seeds
The fruits are berries or drupes , are depressed spherical or navel-shaped. The berry-shaped fruits often have a large number of stone cells , the stone fruits have one or two-seeded kernels. The pericarp is thick and leathery, the exocarp purple to black. The calyx on the fruit is barely enlarged. Each fruit contains up to 35 seeds, these are kidney-shaped, indented, (2.5) 3.7 to 5 mm long. The seed coat is reticulated and brownish in color. In the semen there is a strongly curved embryo , the cotyledons of which are shorter than the rest of the embryo. The endosperm is abundant.
Distribution and locations
The Saracha species occur in Central and South America, from Venezuela to Bolivia and Peru. There they can be found almost exclusively at altitudes of 3000 to 3800 m in damp locations. Other altitudes are only occasionally settled, in Peru and Colombia locations at altitudes of up to 4000 m and in Bolivia down to 2500 m are known.
Systematics
The genus Saracha was established by Hipólito Ruiz Lopez and José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez . The name honors the Spanish clergyman, pharmacist and plant collector Isidoro Saracha (1733–1803), who botanized in and around the Santo Domingo de Silos monastery. He also sent plants to the Botanical Garden in Madrid.
There are two types of genus:
- Saracha punctata Ruiz & Pav .: It is the most widespread and shows a high degree of variability.
- Saracha quitensis (Hook.) Miers
literature
- Armando T. Hunziker: The Genera of Solanaceae. ARG Gantner Verlag KG, Ruggell, Liechtenstein 2001. ISBN 3-904144-77-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic plant names - extended edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .