Lobelia columnaris
Lobelia columnaris in Bioko
Lobelia columnaris is a plant of the genus Lobelia within the family of Bellflower Family. It occurs in a narrow strip in Western Central Africa.
Features
Lobelia columnaris is an upright, clump-forming, herbaceous plant, reaching the heyday a height of 1 to 2 meters. The hollow stems at the base has a diameter of up to 2 centimeters. He is in the lower section cylindrical and woody in cross section and is upwardly angled in cross-section and unlignified, the hair becomes stronger toward inflorescence. The latex is white.
The sessile leaves are 12 to 19 inches long and 2-6 inches wide. They are narrowly elliptic - lanceolate, oblanceolate or lanceolate, narrowly winged at the base, acute to acuminate toward the outer end. The leaf margin is wavy, almost entire to irregularly toothed or serrated. The occasional whitish side ribs are in 19 pairs and are recessed from the upper side, protruding from the underside. The hairless to downy hairy upper leaf surface is dark green, often tinged with purple, while the weak fluff -haired to filzhaarige underside paler.
The straight, dense flower formation is the time of flowering 20 to 65 inches long and 6 inches wide. The occasionally innervated whitish bracts are 15-25 mm long and 3-5 mm wide. The 10 to 15 millimeters long, cylindrical in cross-section, fluff hairy flower stalks usually have two tiny bracteoles. The 10 to 15 mm long and 1-2 mm wide sepals are narrowly oblong to nearly linear, almost glabrous to filzhaarig and trimmed to blunt at the extremity. The pale purple to bluish Corolla is 25 to 35 millimeters long and at base 3-4 mm wide. It is irregular, but heaped fünfgelappt to approximately half of the corolla tube, the lobes 1-2 mm wide, approximately linear and spread. The fluff hairy lateral flaps are slight different from each other.
The stamens are glabrous and 15 to 28 millimeters long, the anthers hairy 6-7 millimeters long and fine. The hemispherical, tomentose hairy ovary is 3 millimeters long and the outer end of 3 to 5 millimeters wide. The fruit is a capsule, 6-9 mm wide, 4-6 mm long, hairy hemispherical bell-shaped and finely tomentose to. The ovate - flattened, narrowly winged seeds are up to 7 mm long.
Dissemination and locations
Lobelia columnaris can be found in Central Africa, their occurrence in the form of a corridor extending approximately along the Cameroon line from the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea in the south to the north of Cameroon Tchabal Mbabo, occasionally also with findings in Nigeria. It grows in the highlands at altitudes between 1200-2700 meters on moist, open sites at the edges of woods and meadows, but occasionally secondary, for example, on roadsides.
System
Lobelia columnaris was first described in 1862 by Joseph Dalton Hooker. It is the only west- central African representative of a lineage of giant lobelia, are known for otherwise the East African mountains. Molecular genetic studies place them in a pantropic group of more than 60 species, which together form the section rhynchopetalum.
Status
Lobelia columnaris has been classified in 2000 by the IUCN as " Near Threatened ". In particular, the historically known as extensive deposits on Mount Cameroon seemed unable in decline.