Beach plantain

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Beach plantain
Beach plantain (Plantago maritima)

Beach plantain ( Plantago maritima )

Systematics
Order : Mint family (Lamiales)
Family : Plantain family (Plantaginaceae)
Tribe : Plantagineae
Genre : Plantain ( Plantago )
Subgenus : Coronopus
Type : Beach plantain
Scientific name
Plantago maritima agg.
L.

The beach-plantain ( Plantago maritima ) is a plant from the family of the way Erich plants (Plantaginaceae). It occurs mainly in saline places in the northern hemisphere .

Other names are or were Andel ( Jever ), Rueller ( East Friesland ), Qeige ( Holland ), Röttnsteert (East Friesland), Sodder ( North Friesland ) and Sud ( Holstein ).

Several small species such as the snake plantain ( Plantago serpentina ), the Kiel plantain ( Plantago holosteum ) and the alpine plantain ( Plantago alpina ) become the collective species Plantago maritima agg. summarized.

description

Beach plantain ( Plantago maritima ), illustration
Plantago maritima , inflorescence
The shaft is covered with hair.
Occurrence on a roadside shoulder in Lower Austria that has been treated with road salt.
inflorescence
Single flower
Flower, sepals anteriorly removed. The corolla tube is hairy.

The beach plantain is a deciduous, perennial herbaceous plant that reaches heights of 15 to 40 cm. It grows like a rosette and forms a raised, spiky inflorescence at flowering time . The fleshy, thickened, gray-green rosette leaves are linear to lanceolate in shape. They are hairless and rarely lightly serrated. The leaves are often longer than 10 cm, but are only around 2 to 6 mm wide compared to other plantain species. At first they are runny on the top and keeled on the bottom, later they are flat and have three to five parallel nerves. The small, reduced, yellow-brownish colored individual flowers are in a few, dense spikes, which can be 3 to 10 cm long and are always a lot shorter than the stem. The petals of each individual flower form brownish corolla lobes. The front egg-shaped sepals appear bluntly rounded and are about 2 to 2.3 mm long. Both the bracts and the sepals are mostly ciliate. The beach plantain also forms a briefly compressed, pleiociform rootstock, which is provided with scale-shaped remnants of the wool-haired leaf sheaths. The beach plantain blooms between July and October.

ecology

The following adaptations to the salt location have developed: the succulence of the leaves with deposits of salt in large vacuoles , early shedding of the oldest leaves in which the salt is enriched, accumulation of the sugar alcohol sorbitol in the cytoplasm as an osmotic counterweight to the high salt concentration in the vacuoles . Despite these adaptations, the plant is only an optional halophyte with an optimum of growth with little or no salt content.

A total of 26 different insect species are said to live on the plant. Sprouting beach plantain is an important source of food for Brent geese in spring .

Occurrence

The beach plantain is widespread in Eurasia . It is also found in North (Canada, northern USA) and South America (southern Argentina and Chile).

The beach plantain is a characteristic species of the salt marshes and beach communities on the North and Baltic Sea coasts, but it also occurs in inland ruderal sites that are influenced by salt. The plant is one of the most important representatives of the step flora. The beach plantain has rarely been found on soils containing calcium sulfate (gypsum). It is relatively common on the coasts. In the interior, however, it is quite rare. In Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria it is considered lost. In some federal states it is on the red list of vascular plants, as its populations there are primarily threatened by human influence. It is a character species of the salt marshes (class Asteretea tripolii).

Alpine plantain ( Plantago alpina )
Alpine plantain ( Plantago alpina )
Kiel plantain ( Plantago holosteum )

Small types

Several small species such as the snake plantain ( Plantago serpentina ), the keel plantain ( Plantago holosteum ) and the alpine plantain ( Plantago alpina ) have been classified by some authors as the collective species Plantago maritima agg. summarized.

The alpine plantain ( Plantago alpina L. ) is found on low-lime, humus-stony loamy soil in alpine locations. It is found in the Central Alps at altitudes between 1,000 and 2,500  m above sea level. NN . He is a character type of the Nardion Association. The alpine plantain is smaller overall (5 to 15 cm high) and the ears are only 1.5 to 3 cm long. The bracts are pointed but awnless . The plants bloom a little earlier, namely from April to August. Their distribution area extends from Spain over the Alps to the former Yugoslavia. In the Allgäu Alps, it rises to an altitude of 2350 meters.

The snake plantain ( Plantago serpentina All .; Syn .: Plantago strictissima L. ) has fleshy, flat, rounded ciliate leaves and is found on serpentine or over basic rock in the Alps and in the Swiss Jura . It is a character species of the Sedo-Scleranthion association. Its distribution area extends from Central Europe to Southern Europe and Southeast Europe. In this species, the flower spike is between 4 and 12 cm long.

The keel plantain ( Plantago holosteum Scop .; Syn .: Plantago carinata Mert. & WDJ Koch ) has keeled leaves that are thinly ciliate at the edge. They are flat furrowed on top. The species is rarely found in the Alps from Lake Garda to Hochschwab . The distribution area extends from Spain to Bulgaria, the Aegean Sea, Turkey and the Middle East.

Karol Marhold (2011) also considers the species Plantago alpina and Plantago holosteum to be separate species, but considers Plantago serpentina to be a subspecies of Plantago maritima . According to him, the following subspecies of Plantago maritima can be distinguished:

  • Plantago maritima L. subsp. maritima : It occurs from Europe to West Asia, Mongolia, Siberia and North West Africa.
  • Plantago maritima subsp. borealis (Lange) Blytt & Dahl (Syn .: Plantago borealis Lange ): It occurs in Iceland and Russia.
  • Plantago maritima subsp. ciliata Printz : It occurs in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia and Moldova.
  • Plantago maritima subsp. juncoides (Lam.) Hultén (Syn .: Plantago juncoides Lam. ): It occurs in Norway, Sweden and Finland.
  • Plantago maritima subsp. serpentina (all.) Arcang. : It occurs in Spain, France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
  • Plantago maritima subsp. subpolaris (Andrejev) Tzvelev : It occurs in northern European Russia.

use

The young leaves and shoots of the plant can be eaten raw or cooked - they should have a delicate taste. Raw leaves are very suitable for mixed salads.

swell

literature

  • Dietmar Aichele, Heinz-Werner Schwegler: The flowering plants of Central Europe. Volume 4: nightshade plants to daisy plants . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-440-06194-9 , pp. 202 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl Jessen , The German Folk Names of Plants , Verlag von Philipp Cohen Hannover 1882, page 293
  2. ↑ Eckehart J. Jäger, Klaus Werner (Ed.): Exkursionsflora von Deutschland . Founded by Werner Rothmaler. 10th edited edition. tape 4 : Vascular Plants: Critical Volume . Elsevier, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Munich / Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8274-1496-2 .
  3. ^ Beach plantain. In: FloraWeb.de.
  4. ↑ a b Ruprecht Düll , Herfried Kutzelnigg : Pocket dictionary of the plants of Germany and neighboring countries. The most common Central European species in portrait . 7th, corrected and enlarged edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-494-01424-1 .
  5. ↑ http://umweltpraktika.de/wissen/strandwegerich.html
  6. ↑ a b c Plantago maritima in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
  7. ↑ Flora del Conosur. Catálogo de las Plantas Vasculares
  8. ↑ a b c Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . With the collaboration of Angelika Schwabe and Theo Müller. 8th, heavily revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 , pp.  873-874 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h Karol Marhold, 2011: Plantaginaceae : Datasheet Plantago In: Euro + Med Plantbase - the information resource for Euro-Mediterranean plant diversity.
  10. ↑ Erhard Dörr, Wolfgang Lippert : Flora of the Allgäu and its surroundings. Volume 2, IHW, Eching 2004, ISBN 3-930167-61-1 , p. 498.

Web links

Commons : Beach Plantain  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files