Pinguicula alpina

Alps - fat (Pinguicula alpina)

The Alps - fat (Pinguicula alpina) is a species in the genus fat herbs ( Pinguicula ). It occurs in Europe and Asia and is one of the few native species in Germany. According to your name, it is a mainly encountered in mountainous Art Like all Butterworts is karnivor the Alps - fat herb.

Description

The Alps - fat herb is a perennial herbaceous plant that reaches between five and 15 inches of height. The root is one to two inches long, white yellow, fleshy and strand-shaped. Vitale plants form in the axils of the leaves after flowering about three millimeters long bulbils that serve the vegetative propagation. An arctic breeding sites, the remains of bulb formation, however. Towards the winter draws the plant in a Hibernakel one, a slightly recessed in the ground bud, from which it only shoots emerging in the spring, so it is a Hemikryptophyt. The only type of temperature of Butterworts the Alps - fat herb has rooted Hibernakel.

The five to eight fleshy, light green to reddish, elliptic to lanceolate, oblong leaves form a flat rosette lying on the ground with up to six inches in diameter. On the surface, the leaves are sticky from catching secretion with which they catch small insects. When prey is reached, it is digested by enzymes secreted by the glands of the leaf surface, which, however, are missing along the midrib of the leaves. The leaves are very mobile in support of fishing and can be rolled away to almost center of the sheet. Under strong sunlight, the leaves turn a reddish color.

The Alps - fat herb blossoms for the first time after several years. From April to July grow from the center of the rosette up to eight, rarely even up to thirteen inflorescences with single flowers that are up to twelve inches high. The zygomorphic flowers are ten to 16 millimeters long, with a short yellow green spur, consisting of a three-lobed lower lip and two-lobed upper lip. They are white with a variable in shape and size, yellow throat patch. The flowers are protogyn, that is, female scarring mature before the male anthers, they are pollinated by flies.

The six to nine millimeters long and two to three millimeters wide, eilänglichen, pointed capsule bear fruit abundantly fine dust, rust-brown seeds.

Dissemination

The plant has two centers of distribution, even in the Alps (especially the edge of the Alps ), and further in the extreme, sub-arctic north of Scandinavia in Europe. Your limits are reached, the kind in the West in the Pyrenees and in the east in the Carpathians, but is also scattered as Glazialrelikt in the Baltics and the Balkans to find (Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia). Voreiszeitlich the Alps - fat herb, however, was based in Asia, where it occurs today in Siberia, China, and everywhere in the Himalayas (Nepal, Tibet, India).

In German-speaking is the way not only in Switzerland, except in Vienna scattered everywhere in Austria ( where deposits off the Alps are glacial relicts and radiate not from the Alps), but also in Germany, where it next to the commons fat (Pinguicula vulgaris ) is the only occurring Fettkrautart.

Habitats and societies

The species is found at altitudes up to 4,100 meters above sea level in full sun locations. The habitats are alkaline to neutral soils sickernasse. However, the plant is also drought tolerant unusual for a Fettkrautart temperate zones. The Alps - fat herb is typical of subalpine Rieselfluren, moors and alpine stone lawn.

It occurs in alpine regions often accompanied by cushion - sedge, alpine rock roses, snakes knotweed, mountain avens and the capitate lousewort on. Here it is mainly found in the plant communities of the Association Seslerion albicantis (Alpine Blue Grass Turf ) and the Association Caricetum firmae ( cushion harrow lawn ).

In hill and montane occurrences rust red head Ried, marsh helleborine, scurvy grass, but also the commoners Butterwort it is of black head Ried, accompanied. Here it is found mainly in the plant communities of the associations Caricion davallianae (lime - fen, marsh Davallseggen ) and Cratoneurion commutati (lime - source corridor).

Threats and conservation

The Alps - fat herb is not in immediate danger because of its broad geographic distribution. In Germany, however, it is rare and specially protected under the federal Species Protection Regulation. In Switzerland it is partly protected at the cantonal level, applies, however, largely as safely. In Austria, it is only in the Pannonian region and in the northern foothills of the Alps as a regionally endangered.

Use

Folk medicine distinguished the different types of fat herbs are not on, but used them against wounds, swellings, sciatica, liver disease and stomach, breast and lung diseases. Your benefits against the said diseases is attributed to the cinnamic acid contained in the plant.

System

1583 differed Clusius in his " Historia stirpium rariorum by Pannoniam, Austriam " already two forms, a blue flowering ( = nasty fat (Pinguicula vulgaris )) and a white-flowering ( = Alpine - fat herb). 1753 Linnaeus took this in his " Species Plantarum " together with Pinguicula Pinguicula lusitanica villosa and on.

Since then, numerous sub-genera, varieties and forms of the Alpine - fat herb have been described, but nowadays none of these taxa is more accepted.

The Alps - fat herb is (apart from the extremely rare Pinguicula crystallina ) the only European style, which does not belong to the section Pinguicula. It belongs instead to the section micranthus whose type species it is, and their three other members in Russia, northern Siberia and Japan are located.

Thus, although not directly related, hybridized the Alps - fat herb in Europe ( Austria, Finland, Sweden ) in the nature of the terrible fat (Pinguicula × hybrida ).