Colutea arborescens

Yellow bubble bush ( Colutea arborescens )

The yellow bubble bush ( Colutea arborescens ) is a species in the subfamily Fabaceae ( Faboideae ) within the legume family ( Fabaceae ).

• 6.1 Notes and references

Description

Appearance and leaf

The bladder is a deciduous shrub, well-branched shrub that reaches heights of growth 1-4 feet depending on location. The bark of the branches is initially unbedornten hairy and glabrous later and frays into longitudinal strips of branches and trunk.

The alternate arranged on the branches leaves are long-petiolate. It is unpaired pinnate leaves. The leaflets are up to 3.5 inches long and wide elliptical shape.

Inflorescence and flower

The flowering period extends from May to August. In the leaf axils are on long Blütenstandsschäften the racemose inflorescences. The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and fünfzählig double perianth. The calyx is bilabiate. The golden-yellow corolla has the typical structure of the butterfly and flowers up to 2 inches long. The five vividly colored petals are nailed. In zweikronblättrigen shuttles are the stamens and the ovary.

Fruit and seeds

The legumes are distended bubbled at a length of 6 to 8 cm and a diameter of about 3 cm, and containing about 20 to 30 seeds. At maturity opens by drying this legume along the dorsal and ventral suture by about 1 to 2 centimeters. At 3 mm long stalks are the black and brown, lenticular lens and large seeds.

Ecology

The yellow bubble shrub forms root nodules with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

The flowers Ecologically is vormännliche, fragrance -free " butterfly flowers with brush means " with red-brown dash juice painting. Nine of the ten stamens are fused into a tube open at the top, the 10th is free and gives access to the nectar freely, thus forming a " nectar gap". Pollinators are bumblebees and other bees relatives, since only they have enough power to push the boat down.

The females of the Great Wanderbläulings ( Lampides boeticus ) lay their eggs from the ovary.

Due to the long-lasting flowering period from May to August you can see the maturing August to October legumes together with the flowers on the bush. The legumes are distended vesicular at maturity due to the parchment-like, gas-impermeable pericarp by carbon dioxide formation. The sloping as a whole fruit is spread in high winds as balloonists or as a floor runner in autumn and winter, the fruit wall is rotted and the seeds free. The fruits are also winter stayer and then wind through the open spreader on top of the front third of legumes.

Toxicity

Seeds and leaves of the Yellow bubble bush are poisonous.

Active ingredients: Add the leaves and pods Coluteasäure; in the leaves and seeds are not chemically explored a bitter substance. In the seed about 1% canavanine.

The literature variously claimed that the plant should contain cytisine. In more recent work which is denied, however, and made ​​the unknown bitter principle responsible for the laxative effect.

Poisoning: diarrhea, occasional vomiting.

Occurrence and use

The yellow bubble shrub is common in North Africa, southern Europe and southern Central Europe and Western Asia. In Germany it occurs naturally only in the Upper Rhine area.

As an ornamental plant, he has not found a wider distribution area since the 16th century. He is occasionally planted on roadsides or in gardens.

In its natural habitat it is found predominantly on mostly dry limestone soils. He settled mostly dry slopes and rocky corridors and is occasionally also found in sparse, sub-Mediterranean deciduous forests.

Trivia

• The Baguenaude (French Baguenaude " empty shell of the Yellow bubble bush " in the figurative sense of the word " trifle " ) is a humorous genre of French poetry.