Desfontainia

Desfontainia spinosa, illustration.

Desfontainia spinosa is the only species of the genus Desfontainia in the species-poor family of Columelliaceae within the angiosperms ( Magnoliophyta). It is a neotropical Art

• 4.1 Notes and references

Description

Desfontainia spinosa grows as evergreen shrub that reaches heights of growth of about 2 meters. The against-constant leaves are simple. Your leaf margins are thorny and so its leaves resemble those of the holly (Ilex ).

The solitary terminal flower is standing fünfzählig. The sepals are fused at their base. The five scarlet petals are fused Roehrig and up to 5 cm long. There are five stamens present. It is formed a fleshy, white to yellow berry on the cup is still clearly visible.

The chromosome number is 2n = 14

Dissemination

The home of Desfontainia spinosa is located in Costa Rica and Peru to Chile in the Andes.

History of the introduction to Europe

The plant collector William Lobb, who until 1848 was on the hunt for newly introduced plant species on behalf of Veitch & Sons in 1840 in various countries of South America, collected the Desfontainia spinosa simultaneously with the Chilean Araucaria (Araucaria araucana) in 1843 / 44th A report about it appeared in Curtis 's Botanical Magazine 4781 (1854 ).

Later, around 1925, the plant collector Harold Frederick Comber followed him, whose father was chief gardener at Nyman. He introduced a form with vermilion flowers that Desfontainia spinosa ' Harold Comber '.

System

The genus Desfontainia was erected in 1794 by the Spanish botanists Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez. The genus name was chosen in honor of the French botanist René Louiche Desfontaines.

Previously, the genus Desfontainia into the family of Brechnuss plants ( Loganiaceae ) was provided. Some authors this genus in a separate family Desfontainiaceae Endl. with only a single species Recent studies (Bremer et al. 1994, Backlund & Bremer 1997, Bell et al. 2001) show that the previous classification in the system is not valid and so the family Columelliaceae stands today in any order.

Swell

• Columelliaceae on the APWebsite - Angiosperm Phylogeny Website.
• Description of the family of Desfontainiaceae with the only Desfontainia at DELTA. (English )
• Illustrated description of the St. Andrews Botanic Garden. (English )