Kolkwitzia amabilis
Kolkwitzia amabilis
The Kolkwitzie ( Kolkwitzia amabilis ) or pearl shrub is the only species of the genus Kolkwitzia within the family of Honeysuckle ( Caprifoliaceae ). The type Kolkwitzia amabilis is originally from China. It was relatively late known in Central Europe as a flowering bush and the varieties are now used as ornamental shrubs in the moderate areas in parks and gardens.
Description
The Kolkwitzie is a deciduous, upright shrub that reaches the plant height 3-4 meters. The branches have a brown, peeling bark, which is inclined in wide arcs branches of an initially finely hairy and later smooth bark. All buds are the same size, about 2 to 5 millimeters long, pointed egg-shaped and projecting from the branch. They are covered with four to five pairs of pointed, brown, more or less white furred bud scales. Terminal buds are missing.
The leaves are arranged on opposite sides. The petiole is hairy 2 to 3 millimeters long and bristly. The simple leaf blade is broadly ovate and 3-9 inches long, pointed with a rounded base. The leaf margin is cut away to almost entire, and ciliated. The upper leaf surface is hairy dark green and scattered the nerves of the lower side are hairy rough. Stipules absent.
The flowers are solitary or in pairs united in 5 to 7 centimeters wide trugdoldigen inflorescences at the end of short side branches. When paired flowers the base of the ovary is directly over six bracts with the individually arranged they are about four cover pages. The adherent to the ovary bracts are hairy and woody to fruit maturity and cover the fruit as stiff bristles.
The hermaphrodite and zygomorphic flowers have a double perianth. The five sepals are narrow, straddling, hairy and even get to the fruit. The five pink petals are 1.5 inches long, bell-shaped fused with two Kronlippen. The lower lip ends in three and the upper lip in two outstretched Corolla lobe. The hairy Kronschlund is yellow -orange. The four stamens are as long as the corolla tube and partly covered with her. Three or four carpels are fused to an under standing, bottle-shaped, three - or vierfächrigen ovary, with only one or two subjects are fertile and two sterile rows, but contains only one fertile ovule. When the flowers are in pairs, then their ovaries are fused together. The fluffy hairy stylus are about as long as the corolla tube and do not project the crown; they end up in a capitate stigma. The flowering period extends from May to June.
There are 0.7 to 1 cm long formed indehiscent fruits. They are densely hairy bristly. The dried calyx remains as 3 millimeters long beak. The fruits ripen from August to September. The seeds contain a small, straight embryo and endosperm much.
The chromosome number is 2n = 32
Distribution and habitat requirements
The wild rare Kolkwitzia amabilis comes from the Chinese provinces of Anhui, Gansu, Henan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei perhaps.
There you can find them at altitude 300-1300 meters. It grows on hillsides, roadsides, in species- rich forests and copses. The robust shrubs prefer moderately dry to fresh soils that are slightly acidic to alkaline, nutrient- rich, but avoids sands and clays. It thrives in full sun to light shade locations and is frost hardy.
System
The Kolkwitzie ( Kolkwitzia amabilis ) is the only species of the genus Kolkwitzia. This is counted either to the family or subfamily Linnaeaceae Linnaeoideae within the family of Honeysuckle ( Caprifoliaceae ). Synonyms are Kolkwitzia amabilis var calicina Pampanini and K. amabilis var tomentosa Pampanini.
Botanical history
The Kolkwitzie was discovered very late, and was not even in ancient China in culture. The Italian Father Giuseppe Giraldi, who was from 1890 to 1895 as a missionary in the province of Shaanxi, found fruiting specimens and put them documents in his herbarium at. His collection he sent to Florence, from where it was passed for the determination of the Botanical Museum in Berlin. There, Karl Otto Graebner recognized on the basis of fruit characteristics that it is a new way and a new genus of honeysuckle. He named the genus after his friend Richard Kolkwitz and gave her the epithet amabilis (Latin for adorable ). Richard Kolkwitz later became famous as the co-founder of wastewater biology and biological- ecological water analysis. Its name goes back to the Sorbian place Kolkwitz at Cottbus. The first publication to Kolkwitzie appeared in 1901 in the Flora of Central China by Ludwig Diels in Volume 29 of the Botanical Yearbook.
In 1900, the plant collector Ernest Henry Wilson sent the seeds Kolkwitzie from Hubei Province to England, where they were sown in the nursery of Veitch and Sons. Seedlings which were determined to be representative of Kolkwitzia amabilis the Botanical Gardens at Kew and 1909 presented in the Kew Bulletin, although the manner in England did not come up to this time to blossom. The Kolkwitzie was described " as a little presentable and suitable only for lovers ." 1910 bloomed for the first time the shrub in the gardens of Veitsch and became popular after several publications with images of flowering shrub in England. Wilson brought the bush to the United States, where he became known as "Beauty Bush". In Germany the shrub reaching only around 1930 a larger spread, often it was only after the Second World War.
Use
The varieties of Kolkwitzie be used in moderate fields because of their decorative flowers as an ornamental shrub in parks and gardens.