Dwarf cattail

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dwarf cattail
Dwarf cattails (Typha minima), infructescence

Dwarf cattails ( Typha minima ), infructescence

Systematics
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Cattail family (Typhaceae)
Genre : Cattail ( Typha )
Type : Dwarf cattail
Scientific name
Typha minima
Funck ex Hoppe
Miniature Piston Society

The dwarf cattail ( Typha minima ) is a very rare family of typhaceae belonging (Typhaceae) marsh plant . It is characterized by its almost spherical fruit stands and often forms species-poor dominant stands in quiet bays and oxbow lakes of larger rivers. In the course of river regulations over the past hundred years, the species has experienced a dramatic decline and is now considered to be threatened with extinction throughout Central and Europe.

description

The Typha minima is a 30 to 70, times 140 cm high perennial herbaceous plant with short 5 to 8 millimeters thick rhizomes . The leaves are very narrow, linear, blue-green and not shiny. They can be up to 30 centimeters long and 1 to 2 millimeters wide. Only the sterile shoots are leafed, they are missing on the flower stalks. These only have leaf sheaths without spreading . The leaf blades are semicircular in cross section, clearly arched underneath and flat above. They are filled with a spongy pulp. The leaf sheaths are open and slightly eyed at the mouth of the vagina.

The flowers are unisexual. The female flowers form an egg-shaped, spherical, up to 4 centimeters long, brown-black piston - in contrast to the other European Typha species with cylindrical pistons. Above it are the male flowers, separated by a 0.5 to 3 centimeter long stem section, which are once or twice as long as the female cobs. The female flowers have a stalked ovary , which is surrounded by a thick ring of hair. The three individual stamens of the male flowers are only surrounded by a few hairs. The main flowering period of the species lasts from mid-April to June. Another bloom can occur in August.

ecology

The dwarf cattail is a hemicryptophyte and a hydrophyte . The wintering buds are under water. The light-loving plant does not tolerate shade. Their ecological focus is on low-nitrogen to low-nitrogen, base-rich or lime-rich, soaked regularly flooded and air-poor soils. The flowers are pollinated by the wind ( anemophilia ). The spreading takes place through flying seeds ( anemochory ) but also effectively through the drifting of rhizome fragments and clods of earth.

The vegetative spread takes place via short rhizomes that grow up to 20 cm deep into the ground and then rise in an arching manner, which enables newly conquered locations to be colonized quickly. However, it is a poorly competitive pioneer and in the course of floodplain succession is replaced just as quickly by higher-growing plants such as large sedge and reeds . Without sporadic floods that cover the site with new silt or keep it open, the dwarf cattail will be displaced within 10 to 50 years as a result of natural succession . The species can only survive as long as the natural floodplain dynamics are not disturbed and the river repeatedly creates new, suitable locations without vegetation.

In contrast to the other species of the genus, in which the seeds leave the fruit shell after prolonged contact with the water, sink and germinate under water ( anaerobic ), in the dwarf cattail they always remain in the fruit shell and germinate in the air under aerobic conditions . Both fruits and young seedlings do not sink and are transported by the water to the river banks, where they germinate on silt and fine sand and anchor their primary roots in the substrate. The germination rate of ripe fruits is 90%, but the germination rate decreases rapidly. After about a year, the seeds will no longer germinate.

Distribution and locations

The dwarf cattail is common from Europe to Mongolia . It has a strongly disjoint area that has large gaps. Its distribution area is limited to the large river systems of the Alps with the Alpine foothills , the Apennine peninsula , the Danube region and the Balkans as well as the mountains of Central and Central Asia.

Today there are only a few small isolated occurrences in the Alpine region in the Durancetal and Haute-Savoie in France and in Graubünden in Switzerland . There are also several artificially settled populations in the Valais in recent years . The formerly large populations in Germany are now all extinct. In Austria the kind is also greatly reduced. Remnants of the formerly large deposits can still be found in Vorarlberg and Tyrol . Today these are the largest populations across the Alps.

It is a pioneer species of large alpine floodplains . It grows on periodically flooded banks of slowly flowing, pure and cool waters. It preferably colonizes newly created oxbow lakes without vegetation and calm meanders of the main river bed with base-rich, mostly calcareous, humus, sandy-silty and gravelly deposits ( alluvial sand soils ). On the north side of the Alps, together with the colorful horsetail ( Equisetum variegatum ), it forms a species-poor plant society (association), the so-called dwarf-bob society (Equiseto-Typhetum minimae Br. Bl. In Volk 1939) from the association Caricion bicolori-atrofuscae. Secondarily, the cattail plant can colonize gravel pits with a groundwater connection and artificial alluvial sand areas.

Hazard and protection

The dwarf cattail is acutely threatened with extinction across Europe. It is part of the Bern Convention , which is mainly implemented in the EU Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive . The Zwergrohrkolben-Gesellschaft has been classified in Annex I of the Habitats Directive as a priority habitat, for which special measures for conservation and development are to be taken within the framework of the European Natura 2000 system of protected areas . In Germany, this species was listed as critically endangered (hazard category 1) in the Red List of Threatened Ferns and Flowering Plants in 1996. In Austria, too, the dwarf cattail is included in the list of species of ferns and flowering plants threatened with extinction in Austria. In Switzerland the species is considered endangered.

The main sources of danger are to be found in the expansion and regulation of larger rivers and the lack of floodplain dynamics. Also to be mentioned are gravel mining, the construction of traffic routes as well as groundwater and river bed subsidence. In Switzerland and Austria attempts are being made to reintroduce the dwarf cattail.

Taxonomy

Typha minima was the first to be recognized and named as an independent species by Heinrich Christian Funck , who collected it at the foot of the Untersberg near Salzburg , but not validly described. The first valid description was published in 1794 in the same volume of journals by David Heinrich Hoppe .

swell

literature

  • David John Galeuchet, Rolf Holderegger: Conservation and reintroduction of the small cattail (Typha minima) - vegetation surveys, monitoring and genetic analysis of origin. In: Botanica Helvetica. Volume 115, No. 1, 2005, pp. 15-32, DOI: 10.5169 / seals-743 .
  • Henning Haeupler, Thomas Muer: picture atlas of the fern and flowering plants of Germany . Ed .: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (=  The fern and flowering plants of Germany . Volume 2 ). Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2000, ISBN 3-8001-3364-4 , pp. 682 .
  • Christoph Käsermann: CR Typha minima L. - Small cattail - Typhaceae. In: Christoph Käsermann, Daniel M. Moser (Hrsg.): Information sheets on species protection - flowering plants and ferns. Federal Office for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, Bern 1999, pp. 284–285 (PDF file).
  • Norbert Müller: Species aid measure for the dwarf burr (Typha minima Hoppe) in the Tyrolean Lech Valley. As of July 2005 ( PDF file ( Memento from August 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Erich Oberdorfer : South German plant communities. Part I: Rock and wall communities, alpine corridors, water, silting and moor communities. 4th edition. Gustav Fischer, Jena / Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-437-35280-6 .
  • Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora . With the collaboration of Theo Müller. 7th, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1994, ISBN 3-8252-1828-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Typha minima. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  2. ↑ Dieter Korneck, Martin Schnittler, I. Vollmer: Red list of fern and flowering plants (Pteridophyta et Spermatophyta) of Germany. In: Series of publications for vegetation science. Volume 28, 1996, pp. 21-187 (excerpt as PDF file).
  3. ↑ Harald Niklfeld: Red List of Endangered Plants Austria (= Green Series of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Youth and Family. Volume 10). 2nd Edition. Austria-Medien-Service, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85333-028-2 (Excerpt: List of species of fern and flowering plants threatened with extinction in Austria) ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ D. Moser, A. Gygax, B. Bäumler, N. Wyler, R. Palese: Red list of endangered species in Switzerland: fern and flowering plants . Federal Office for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, Bern; Center of the data network of the Swiss flora, Chambésy; Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève, Chambésy, 2002, p. 105 ( page no longer available , search in web archives: PDF file; 1194 kB ).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.bafu.admin.ch
  5. ↑ Daniela Csencsics, David Galeuchet, Andreas Keel, Catherine Lambelet, Norbert Müller, Philippe Werner, Rolf Holder Egger: The Small cattail. Threatened inhabitant of a rare habitat. In: WSL information sheet for practice. Volume 43, 2008, pp. 1–8 (PDF file; 306 kB) .
  6. ^ Heinrich Christian Funck: Botanical excursion to the Untersperg. In: Botanical pocket book for the beginners of this science and the apothecary art. Year 1794, pp. 118–125 (here: p. 118; online) .
  7. ↑ David Heinrich Hoppe: Notes from the editor. In: Botanical pocket book for the beginners of this science and the apothecary art. Year 1794, pp. 186–193 (here: p. 187; online) .

Web links

Commons : Typha minima  - album with pictures, videos and audio files