Vanilla imperialis
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Vanilla imperialis is a species of the genus Vanilla ( Vanilla ) in the orchid family (Orchidaceae). It grows as a climbing plant in tropical Africa.
description
Vanilla imperialis is an evergreen climber. The shoot is very thick with a diameter of two to three centimeters, it has no longitudinal grooves. The leaves are 15 to 28 inches long and five to twelve inches wide. The leaf shape is oval with a short, attached tip. The leaf base is rounded, the leaves are not petiolate.
The inflorescence is unbranched, up to 15 centimeters long, thick and fleshy, it bears numerous, spirally arranged flowers . The pointed bracts are oval, concave like a boat, they sit so close together that they overlap and give the inflorescence axis a cone-like appearance (in East African specimens this feature is less pronounced). The flower stalk and ovary are together eight to ten centimeters long. Sepals and petals are yellowish, about five to eight inches long and 1.6 to two inches wide. They are lanceolate and pointed. The five to six centimeter long lip forms a tube around the column , the lower half is bulbous, the front edge is wavy. It is purple with yellow veining or yellow with purple veining. The blade is indistinctly three-lobed or unlobed, hairy or glabrous on the inside. The column is 3.6 centimeters long and fused with the lip over almost its entire length.
distribution
Vanilla imperialis occurs in tropical Africa. In the west the area extends to the Ivory Coast and Ghana , in the center Nigeria , Cameroon , Equatorial Guinea , Gabon and both Congo are populated, in the east the area extends to Ethiopia , Uganda and Tanzania , in the southwest the species still reaches Angola . It grows in the tropical rainforest or in forests with a short dry season, also in clearings. It reaches altitudes of up to 1300 meters.
Systematics and botanical history
Vanilla imperialis was first described by Kraenzlin in 1896 . A variety of congolensis , described by De Wildeman in 1921 , differs only slightly in dimensions and is no longer recognized. De Wildemann gives curved capsule fruits up to 40 centimeters long for this variety . Vanilla lujae, described by De Wildemann in 1904, is also a synonym for Vanilla imperialis .
Within the genus Vanilla , Vanilla imperialis is classified in the subgenus Xanata and there in the Tethya section , which contains all species of the paleotropic species . According to Portères , it is similar to other African species such as Vanilla seretii and Vanilla nigerica , as well as Vanilla chalotii . Soto Arenas and Cribb do not name any of these species as close relatives, instead they are closely related to Vanilla ochyrae and Vanilla polylepis , as well as to Vanilla grandifolia .
literature
- Le Vanillier et la Vanille dans le Monde . In: Gilbert Bouriquet (ed.): Encyclopédie Biologique . tape XLVI . Paul Lechevalier, Paris 1954.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Roland Portères: Le Genre Vanilla et ses Espèces. In: Le Vanillier et la Vanille dans le Monde. Pp. 174-179.
- ↑ a b c Miguel A. Soto Arenas, Phillip Cribb: A new infrageeric classification and synopsis of the genus Vanilla Plum. ex Mill. (Orchidaceae: Vanillinae) . In: Lankesteriana . tape 9 , no. 3 , 2010, p. 380–381 ( ucr.ac.cr [PDF; 692 kB ]).
- ↑ a b c Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Vanilla imperialis. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- ↑ In: Notbl. Royal Bot. Garden Volume 1. Berlin 1896, p. 155.
Web links
Wikispecies: Vanilla imperialis - Species directory