Skimmia

Skimmia japonica: burgeoning inflorescences of a cultural form.

The Skimmien ( skimmia ) are a genus of flowering plants in the rue family ( Rutaceae ). Your home is the hot- tempered areas of Asia: Himalayas, East Asia, Japan and the Philippines, where they grow in mountain forests to light shady and cool sites with high soil and air humidity. The best-known species of the genus is skimmia japonica; of it, there are some cultivated forms, which are used as ornamental plants.

• 4.1 Notes and references

Description

Appearance and leaves

Skimmia species are evergreen shrubs or small trees. The alternate, stalked, simple, leathery leaves have smooth edges.

Inflorescences and flowers

Skimmia species are dioecious getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ). At a plant sitting in the terminal, thyrsenförmigen inflorescences together many only male or female flowers.

The small flowers have a diameter of 6 to 15 mm and are usually four or fünfzählig double perianth. The most four or five (three to seven) sepals are fused at most briefly at their base. The most four or five (three to seven) petals are free. In the male flowers are usually four or five (three to seven) free stamens and a rudimentary gynoecium present. It is a discus available. In female flowers two to five carpels are fused to a constant upper two to fünfkammerigen ovary. In each ovary chamber only one ovule is present, rarely two. The stylus is briefly to more or less as long as the ovary.

Fruit and seeds

The red at maturity to black drupe -like, fleshy berries have a diameter of 6 to 12 mm and contain one to five single-seeded leathery chambers. The egg-shaped to ellipsoidal seeds have a membranous testa and contain abundant endosperm and a straight embryo with two oblong to almost circular, flattened cotyledons ( cotyledons ).

Ingredients

All the plants are slightly toxic. Skimmien contain alkaloids. In the woody parts of plants skimmin is included and the leaves contain Sosolin, Dictamnin, Skimmianin, Edulin and Platydosmin.

Nevertheless, as the leaves of skimmia laureola be eaten cooked or used as seasoning.

System

The genus skimmia in 1783 by Carl Peter Thunberg with the type species skimmia japonica Thunb. situated in Nova Genera Plantarum, p 58. A synonym for skimmia Thunb. is Laureola M.Roem .. The genus belongs to the subfamily skimmia Toddalioideae in the family of Rutaceae.

There are only four to eight skimmia types:

• Skimmia arborescens T.Anderson ex Gamble (syn.: S. wallichii Hook f & Thomson ex Gamble. ): History of Eastern Himalayas to Southeast Asia. Shrub or small tree up to 15 m Height.
• Skimmia × confusa NPTaylor ( p = anquetilia × S. japonica)
• Skimmia × foremanii H.Knight ( = S. japonica × p reevesiana, Syn: skimmia × foremanii var rogersii ( Mast. ) Rehder, skimmia rogersii mast. )
• Skimmia japonica Thunb. (Syn.: S. oblata T.Moore, p fragans Carr. ): Native Japan, Korea and China. Shrub with stature heights of up to 7 m. The flowers smell sweet (see syn. S. fragrans of fragrans = scented ). Skimmia japonica f repens ( Nakai ) H.Hara (syn.: S. repens Nakai )
• Skimmia japonica var intermedia Komatsu
• Skimmia japonica var veitchii ( Carrière ) Rehder (syn.: S. oblata var veitchii ( Carrière ) Carrière, S. veitchii Carrière )

Swell

• Prof. Dianxiang Zhang & Thomas G. Hartley: skimmia in the Flora of China, Volume 11, 2008, page 77: Online. ( Description section )
• Skimmia in the Flora of Pakistan. ( Description section )