Penthorum

Penthorum chinense

Penthorum is the only plant genus of the family of Penthoraceae in the order of the saxifrage -like ( Saxifragales ).

Description

The Penthorum species is erect, perennial herbaceous plants. They form rhizomes. The alternate and spirally arranged leaves are stalked at most short and simple. The leaf margin is serrated. The lanceolate leaf blade is pinnately. Stipules absent.

Many flowers are terminal or axillary in arranged zymösen inflorescences. The small, hermaphrodite, radial symmetry flowers are usually five, rarely up to achtzählig. The most five (rarely up to eight ) sepals are fused short; they are maintained during the heyday, but bent back on the fruit. There are one to eight greenish to whitish petals present or they are missing. There are one or two circles, each with usually five, rarely available to eight free, fertile stamens. The filaments are filiform. The pollen is colporat. Five ( rarely up to eight) partially under constant carpels are free or adherent to an ovary. Each carpel contains 30 to 100 (many ) ovules. The short style ending in a capitate stigma.

The flower are usually five, rarely formed up to eight vielsamige follicles.

Systematics and distribution

The genus Penthorum was formerly classified in the family Saxifragaceae.

In genus in the family and thus Penthorum Penthoraceae there are only two types. The genus has a disjoint area: It is native to the temperate to tropical eastern Asia, Indochina and North America in the Atlantic.

• Chinense Pursh Penthorum: The home is Asia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Chinese provinces of Anhui, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan. P. chinense grows in forests, meadows, floodplains and on the banks of the plane up to altitudes of 2,200 meters.
• Penthorum sedoides L.: The home is North America: in large areas of the United States and in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, southeastern Manitoba.

Use

From Penthorum sedoides the leaves are eaten cooked. The Indians have used parts of plants medically.

Swell

• The Penthoraceae in APWebsite family. (English )
• The Penthoraceae family at DELTA by L. Watson & MJ Dallwitz. (English )
• J. Thiede: Penthoraceae in Klaus Kubitzki: The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, Volume 9, 2007 ISBN 978-3-540-32214-6.
• Pan Jintang & Douglas E. Soltis: Penthorum in the Flora of China, Volume 8, page 271: Online.