Sea beet
Wild beet ( Beta vulgaris subsp. Maritima ) on the rocky coast of Helgoland
The Wild beet ( Beta vulgaris subsp. Maritima ) is a subspecies of the plant species beet ( Beta vulgaris) in the family of Amaranthaceae ( Amaranthaceae ). It is also called sea - beet, wild beet, sea -Mangold, sea beet or chard Wilder. It is regarded as the original ancestor of the cultivated beet varieties such as sugar beet, fodder beet, red beet or chard.
- 2.1 life
- 2.2 salt tolerance
- 7.1 Notes and references
Description
Vegetative characteristics
The Wild turnip grows as a one-, two-year or perennial herbaceous plant with plant height of 20 to 100 centimeters. Its root is not or hardly thickened, in contrast to cultivated beet. The richly branched from the base of stems having prostrate or erect branches that are striped edged Grooves and green or red.
The leaves are at the base of the stem and distributes alternate. The simple leaf blade is somewhat fleshy, shiny, glabrous or sparsely hairy. The leaf blade of basal leaves oval - shaped heart-shaped or rhombic, with a length of 10 cm and a width of 5 cm and stalk towards it is narrowed to a long wedge-shaped, stalk -like base. In the middle and upper stem leaves, the leaf blade is wedge-shaped triangular to lanceolate and smaller upwards. The leaf margin is wavy flat or slightly. The leaf tip may be pointed or blunt.
Inflorescence and flower
The Wild turnip flowers from July to September. The eared inflorescence is erect or protruding, clearly separated from the leafy part of the extended branches. The flowers are single or in tangles of two to three in the axils short bracts. The bracts are linear - lanceolate - hautrandig of triangular or oblong- ovoid in shape and at the edge. Bracteoles ( Brakteolen ) are missing. The hermaphrodite flowers are fünfzählig. The urn-shaped perianth consists of three to five connected below tepals. The free tip of the perianth are at a length of about 2 mm in ovate - triangular or oblong, rounded green with membranous edge and the back or slightly keeled. There are five stamens present. The semi - permanent under ovary bears two to three basal associated scars.
Pollination is by wind ( anemophily ).
Fruit and seeds
The capsule fruit is a " cap capsule ." It is enclosed by the perianth, curved tip of the inside, are swollen and slightly keeled. The seed is embedded horizontally in the base of the perianth. Its surface is reddish brown and smooth, its diameter reaches about 2 mm. The annular surrounds the embryo abundant endosperm.
Chromosome number
The chromosome number of wild turnip is 2n = 18
Ecology
Life
In contrast to the two-year always cultivated beet the Wild turnip often grows as a perennial plant. Under the same conditions in the greenhouse, the average life of savages beet the latitude of their origin depends. While plants are two years old from south-western France, plants can be at least 11 years old from United Kingdom. Still further north the lifetime decreases again to about five years. There is also a connection with the stability of habitats: populations with short-lived plants occur in disturbed sites, most durable specimens are found in particularly stable environment.
Salt tolerance
The Wild turnip can grow as Halophyt on moderately saline soils. The salt stress compensates for them by the leaves sodium and chlorine ions accumulated and thereby maintains its turgor. In the root, however, it accumulates sucrose and proline to still take on salty soils with high water potential of water can. This, however, the content of the minerals potassium, magnesium and calcium diluted in the tissue, so that in very saline soils nutrient deficiency occurs.
Occurrence
The Wild turnip is widespread in southern Europe and North Africa to the shores of the Mediterranean and oceanic climates of Western Europe in the West gives her a natural area to the Atlantic Islands (Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands ) in the north to the south coast of Norway and Sweden. Only in recent decades, this frost-sensitive species is also found its way to the Baltic Sea to Poland and Finland. Since 2004 it is also found on a Russian island south of Finland. In the southeast, their range across the Middle East even as far as India, where it grows well in Germany, for example, in field margins and wasteland up to an altitude of about 1200 meters.
As an introduced species, the wild turnip also comes in Australia, North America (New Jersey, California ) and South America (Argentina, Chile) ago.
In Germany, the Wild turnip is extremely rare and is therefore considered potentially endangered ( Red List of Threatened Species: R). A few decades ago they occurred only on the island of Helgoland. Meanwhile, several localities on the German Baltic coast are known, for example, on Fehmarn. According to studies by Driessen (2003 ) is in these deposits actually to wild beet and not feral cultivated beets. The wild turnip could spread further in recent years on the German Baltic coast: 1997 grew at five locations 62 copies, 2001 copies were already 560 plants in 16 locations found. The cause of the spread of the increasingly milder winters are adopted what is underpinned by analysis of meteorological data.
The Wild turnip settled in Germany in full sun, nutrient-rich salt plant corridors of the coasts, such as drift lines, cliffs, dikes and pebble beaches. Occasionally it is also abducted in the inland into nitrogen-rich ruderal before, for example at stations.
System
The first release of Beta vulgaris L. was carried out in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus in Species Plantarum, Linnaeus introduced S. 222 the same time so that the genus Beta on. Wild and cultivated forms he saw as several varieties and named the wild form of Beta vulgaris L. var perennis In the second edition of 1762, pp. 322 Linnaeus separated the wild form as a separate species, Beta maritima L., the cultivated forms from, which he also having regarded as species. It soon became clear that the Wild turnip does not deserve the rank of a kind, since they can easily be crossed with the cultivated forms and there are characteristic transitions between the clans. Alfred Moquin - Tandon they presented in 1849 in Prodromus, 13 ( 2) back in the rank of a beet Beta vulgaris var maritima (L.) Moq. to Beta vulgaris. Giovanni Arcangeli she made in 1882 in Compendio della Flora Italiana, p 593 subsp as a subspecies of Beta vulgaris. maritima (L.) Arcang ..
Synonyms for Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima are: . atriplicifolia Rouy beta, beta bengalensis Roxb, Beta maritima L., Beta maritima var atriplicifolia ( Rouy ) Krassochkin, Beta maritima subsp. danica Krassochkin, Beta maritima var erecta Krassochkin, Beta maritima prostrata var Krassochkin, beta orientalis Roth, Beta palonga RK Basu & KKMukh. , Beta perennis (L.) Freyn, beta trojana Pamukç. ex Aellen, Beta vulgaris var atriplicifolia ( Rouy ) Krassochkin, Beta vulgaris var erecta ( Krassochkin ) Krassochkin, Beta vulgaris var foliosa Aellen, Beta vulgaris var glabra ( Delile ) Aellen, Beta vulgaris var grisea Aellen, Beta vulgaris subsp. lomatogonoides Aellen, Beta vulgaris var maritima (L.) Moq. , Beta vulgaris subsp. orientalis ( Roth) Aellen, Beta vulgaris var orientalis ( Roth) Moq. , Beta vulgaris var perennis L., Beta vulgaris var pilosa ( Delile ) Aellen, Beta vulgaris var prostrata ( Krassochkin ) Krassochkin, Beta vulgaris subsp. provulgaris Ford - Lloyd & JTWilliams and Beta vulgaris var trojana ( Pamukç. ) Ford - Lloyd & JTWilliams.
Use
Young leaves of the wild turnip can be eaten raw as a salad. The older leaves are bitter and should be steamed or boiled like spinach. The somewhat unpleasant taste of the wild form comes about by its high content of tannin and iron. This was the cultured Mangold bred out later.
The leaves of the wild turnip been around since prehistoric times, eaten as a vegetable, as evidenced by Neolithic finds. Cultivation probably began as early as the second millennium BC. Written sources from Assyria indicate that the root ( " Silga " ) has already been planted around 800 in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon BC.
Importance as a plant genetic resource
The starting form of all cultivated beet the Wild turnip plays an important role in the conservation of plant genetic diversity, as in the Convention on Biological Diversity (Rio de Janeiro 1992) is required. A large genetic variability within species is of economic interest because more resistant crops can be grown with the help of wild forms. It is of scientific interest that the Wild turnip spreads in the last 150 years along the Baltic coasts. Thus this clan is suitable to study the consequences of migration on intraspecific diversity.
Meanwhile, genetic modifications, eg the introduction of resistance genes, established worldwide in plant breeding, although in Europe are poorly accepted. Since the wild beet intersect with all the forms of culture and form fertile offspring, and also wild stocks and beet fields often occur in the vicinity, it is feared that transgenes uncontrolled escape into the environment. This can be in the form of seeds of transgenic plants which seed and form new populations. In addition, wild forms can be pollinated with the pollen of transgenic cultivars. Although cultivated beets are harvested in the first year, and usually flower in the second year, flowering individuals come but occasionally in the first year. Since beet pollen are over 1000 meters widespread even distant wild beets can be achieved. It is likely that the genetic diversity of the game is changed by occurrence.
In the case of nematode- resistant, ie less sensitive to Rübenälchen cultivated beet appears to exist to present knowledge no special risk because of the beet cyst nematode does not occur at the sites of the wild beet. A gene flow but will not be strictly avoided.