Colobanthus quitensis
Antarctic Perlwurz
The Antarctic Perlwurz ( Colobanthus quitensis, synonym: Colobanthus crassifolius ) is a plant from the carnation family ( Caryophyllaceae ). Unlike its German name suggests, it is not only found on the Antarctic continent but also from Chile and Peru to Patagonia, and on some Subantarctic Islands.
Description
The Antarctic Perlwurz is linealischen a cushion forming and bald, small in size very variable, tufted plant with a strong root and with standing in rosettes grass similar, rigid or soft leaves that are usually 1 to 1.5 inches long, but occasionally longer.
Her slender inflorescences are as long as the plants themselves or slightly longer and still wear a terminal single flower on a short, thickened at the top of pedicel. Bracts may occur in inflorescence or flower stalk. The four or five sepals are ovate to oblong- round and pointed, the same number of stamens are alternate to the sepals. The fruit is a capsule and stand out from the cup. The seeds are reddish with long funiculus.
Dissemination
The distribution area of the Antarctic Perlwurz is widely held. It ranges from Mexico (17 ° N ) over the South American Andes to Patagonia. Subantarktisch it runs over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the South Orkneys and South Shetland Islands to the Antarctic Peninsula. There she is limited to the ice-free areas of the western coastal region, where they settled well drained, loamy soil mineral, probably increases due to increasingly higher temperatures in the Antarctic summer their range there gradually.
The Antarctic Perlwurz is next to the Antarctic hairgrass ( Deschampsia antarctica), the only native seed plant Antarctica, with her ( as well as the neophyte annual bluegrass and Kentucky bluegrass ), it forms there the only seed plants vegetation type, the " Grass and cushion plans Subformation ". The Antarctic Perlwurz is the rarer of the two species of 116 known in 1985 vascular plant locations it was found in 42%, only 3% she was the on alone.
As a plant that is both adapted to alpine conditions such as polar, she finds herself depending on location at very different altitudes. In Antarctica, she finds herself near sea level, but rises in the Andes up to 4200 meters.
Systematics and Botanical History
The Antarctic Perlwurz was first described by Karl Sigismund Kunth as Sagina quitensis, the specific epithet refers to the locality in Quito, the Ecuadorian capital. Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling then she put 1831 in its own genus, Colobanthus whose type species it is. Another synonym is Colobanthus crassifolius.