Zombia antillarum
| Zombia antillarum | ||||||||||||
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Zombia antillarum |
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| LHBailey | ||||||||||||
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| Zombia antillarum | ||||||||||||
| ( Descourt. Ex BDJacks. ) LHBailey |
Zombia antillarum is aspecies of palm endemic to Hispaniola Island. It is characterized by its prickly leaf sheaths and is the only species of the genus Zombia .
features
Zombia antillarum is a medium-sized, hermaphrodite, multi-stemmed fan palm . The trunk is erect, slender and covered with perennial, overlapping leaf sheaths . Some spiky pneumatophores protrude from the ground near the base of the trunk .
The leaves are fan-shaped, the leaflets are V-shaped. They wither before falling. The leaf sheath forms a network of fibers, with the distal fibers forming a whorl of spines. The petiole is slender, long and unreinforced. It is semicircular in cross section. The adaxial (toward the axis) located Hastula is trilobal, the center lobe is pointed, the lateral rounded. In the abaxial hastula (facing away from the axis) the middle lobe is also pointed, the lateral ones are very small. The leaf blade is very irregularly divided along the adaxial folds on half to two thirds of the length. The result is simply folded, lanceolate and rather thin segments. They are glossy dark green on the top, whitish on the underside with a pronounced midrib.
The inflorescences appear between the leaves, are shorter than these and twofold branched. The peduncle is short. The cover sheet is roehrig, two-keeled and then opens with two lobes. It is striped lengthways. Bracts on the peduncle are missing. The inflorescence axis is longer than the stalk and densely hairy. The bracts here are tubular, striped lengthways, and scattered hairy. Each has a short tipped rag. The side axes of the first order are distant from each other, each has a basal cover sheet that is tubular, double-sided, double-lobed, longitudinally striped and scattered with hair. The lateral axes of the second order are short, glabrous, finely papillary and rather have single flowers that are far apart .
The flowers are cream-colored. The perianth is flat and cup-shaped with six short, membranous tips. The 9 to 12 stamens have short, slender stamens and basifixe, upright, long anthers that open latrors (laterally). The pollen is ellipsoidal and slightly to clearly asymmetrical. The germ opening is a distal sulcus . The longest axis of the pollen grain is 30 to 38 micrometers long. The gynoeceum is inverted pear-shaped, consists of a carpel and narrows to a large, laterally compressed, cup-shaped scar . The ovule sits basal and is orthotropic .
The perianth and the bases of the stamens remain on the fruits. They are elongated to spherical, white, fleshy, the remaining scar is apical. The exocarp is smooth, the mesocarp is fleshy with fibers, the endocarp is crusty. The seed is attached at the base, deeply bilobed, the two lobes again unequal bilobed. The embryo is located in the junction of the two halves . The endosperm is homogeneous and is located in the lobes.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 36.
Distribution and locations
Zombia antillarum is only found on the island of Hispaniola . It grows here on open and bushy slopes of very dry hills.
It grows mainly on serpentine soils, but also occurs over limestone.
In the Red List of the IUCN , the species is not listed. It is classified as rare, in Haiti as endangered due to the extensive destruction of the sites. Despite the extremely low fertility of the serpentine soils, the sites are cleared to create arable land. The species is relatively common in some areas of the Dominican Republic. This is attributed to several factors: The serpentine sites are less cleared; after felling, the palms can sprout again with several trunks and they produce up to 5000 seeds per year; this allows the species to regenerate relatively well.
Systematics
The genus Zombia L.H.Bailey is placed within the family Arecaceae in the subfamily Coryphoideae , Tribe Cryosophileae . Their sister group is a clade with Coccothrinax , hemithrinax and Leucothrinax that may also Thrinax contains.
The genus includes only the species Zombia antillarum (Descourt.) LHBailey . It was described by Descourtilz in 1821 as Chamaerops antillarum and then transferred to its own genus Zombia by Bailey in 1939 . The specific epithet antillarum means "from the Antilles ", the archipelago to which Hispaniola belongs.
The generic name refers to the common name in Haitian Creole "latanye zombi". "Latanye" from the French "latanier" is the name for fan palms, "zombi" denotes the living dead of the voodoo cult. According to ethnographic sources, the people of Gros-Morne (Haiti) believe that the yellowish-brown oil from the seeds acts as a sensory activator. As a result, the oil is used to bring the zombies to life. Another link is the alleged use of the leaves on the roofs to deter zombies from spying on residents. Taylor and Timyan were unable to verify either information in 2004.
Other common names are "latanye pikan" (prickly fan palm), "latanier savanne" or "latanier marron" (savanna or wild fan palm). In the Dominican Republic it is called “guanito” or “guanillo”, the diminutive of “guano”, a name for various palm trees of the genus Coccothrinax and Thrinax .
use
According to Descourtilz, the hard trunk wood was used to make boxes and snuff boxes. According to him, the seeds were used to treat vitamin C deficiency. The fruits are used as pig feed. In one area of the Dominican Republic, the leaf stalks are used to mix cassava flour. The leaves are used as brooms, but are of poorer quality than brooms made from Coccothrinax and Sabal leaves. Reports of the spikes being used as needles for voodoo dolls could not be confirmed by Taylor and Timyan.
The most important use is as an ornamental plant.
supporting documents
- John Dransfield, Natalie W. Uhl, Conny B. Asmussen, William J. Baker, Madeline M. Harley, Carl E. Lewis: Genera Palmarum. The Evolution and Classification of Palms . Second edition, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2008, ISBN 978-1-84246-182-2 , pp. 224f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Fabienne Boncy Taylor, Joel C. Timyan: Notes on Zombia antillarum . Economic Botany, Vol. 58, 2994, pp. 179-183.
- ^ Robert Lee Riffle, Paul Craft: An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms , 4th Edition, Timber Press, Portland 2007, ISBN 978-0-88192-558-6 , p. 476.
Web links
- Zombia on the website of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden