Sarracenia

White pitcher plant ( Sarracenia leucophylla ) in its natural habitat

The pitcher plants ( Sarracenia ), also trumpet or trumpet sheet plants, are a team of eight species genus of carnivorous plants from the family of Pitcher plants ( Sarraceniaceae ). They are almost exclusively distributed in the eastern and southeastern United States. All species of the genus have been greatly reduced by human influence, many are endangered, some even threatened with extinction. The genus was named for Michel Sarrazin.

• 2.1 Area of ​​distribution
• 2.2 habitats
• 2.3 deposits Angesalbte

Description

All eight species are perennial, herbaceous plants whose leaves rosette spring an underground rhizome.

The leaves are upright, with the exception of the Red pitcher plant and the parrot pitcher plant. They are tubular and have a wing-shaped longitudinal side and a so-called operculum (immovable ) dome-shaped sheet extension at the upper end of the tube. The opening of the tube is bounded by the peristome, a rolled outward lip as well as the operculum and the wing-shaped longitudinal side occupied with nectaries.

By means of this sheet structure catch all the pitcher plants prey without the use of any moving parts, the traps are so passive. For attracting the prey is a combination of color, scent and the secretion of the nectaries, which has also been shown coniine contains at least for the Yellow pitcher plant ( Sarracenia flava), which exerts a numbing effect on insects.

The catch itself is done by an abrupt fall of the booty from the peristome to the tube interior. An exception to this safety device are the hoses of the parrot pitcher plant, meet the lying flat on the floor, on their part flooded sites, the function of a trap.

Zones

Each sheet consists, depending on the species, from three to five different zones: Zone 1 is the hood, Zone 2, the peristome and the input area, the zones 3 and 4 ( which are combined in some species ), and (only for the Red pitcher plant ) Zone 5 are deeper sections of the actual hose. Each of these zones has here a special function for which it is accordingly equipped differently.

• Zone 1: The hood. They covered in most species, at least in part, the opening of the tube, thus preventing an excessive full running of the tubes and thus flushing out the prey in the rain. She heads prey but also by a declaration addressed to the hose hair. In some species ( Small pitcher plant, parrot pitcher plant ) it is relatively narrow bent over the hose opening and heaped provided with chlorophyll-free patches that can almost pass freely through the outside light and how windows work ( areolae ), a feature which is more pronounced in the closely related Kobralilie place. Already captured prey animals try flying through these windows to leave the trap and fall in these escape attempts in the hose.

• Zone 2: peristome and upper hose area. This zone is essentially formed by the peristome, which ceases to be particularly large amounts of nectar, and also attracts the prey from the appendage in the actual hose. But still belongs to the upper tube area in which the directed pubescence of the hood continues to this zone.

• Zone 3: Mean hose area. This zone is completely smooth and provided more with no hair, here lose their prey suddenly his grip and crash into the digestive fluid. The surface of this area is densely covered with digestive glands that release digestive enzymes into the tubular fluid.

• Zone 4: lower hose area. This section of the tube serves to absorb the dissolved nutrients and in turn is provided with downwardly directed hairs that prevent prey climb out of the digestive fluid.

• Zone 5: This zone is found only in the red hose plant, it is hairless, free of glands and also does not serve the absorption was assumed to be as long. It is still unknown whether it has a function, and if so, which.

Flowers

Flowers are formed in the early spring, simultaneously with, or shortly before the formation of the first leaves. You are nodding individually on long stalks flowers high above the hoses so as not to jeopardize potential pollinators. The flowers, depending on the type, a diameter of three to ten centimeters and an unusual appearance. The flower is surrounded by three bracts and consists of five sepals, five petals, numerous stamens, and a star-shaped, screen equal bent pen, which catches falling pollen and terminates at the points of the star with the scar. This structure also prevents self-pollination. The petals overlap on the flowers inside down crown and sepals are either red or yellow depending on the type.

Flowers formula:

The main pollinators are bees squeeze in search of nectar inside the flower, where they absorb both pollen from the anthers as the bottom of the pen. They can leave the flower only in the indentations of the stylus. This will avoid that they touch the scars and self-pollinating the plant.

The flowers of all kinds often smell strong, sometimes unpleasant, so the yellow pitcher plant smells strongly of cat urine, other types but also smell of violets. The flowers remain open after opening about two weeks.

Fruit and seeds

In the case of pollination, the leaves are shed and the fünfkammerige ovary swells to form a capsule fruit to be produced in a chamber with considerably fewer seeds than in the other four. Each cap contains between three and six hundred seeds are produced, which mature over about five months, then fades and rips open the capsule, where it releases the seeds. These are 1.5 to 2 millimeters long and have a rough, waxy shell that allows them to be swept away by the water.

Pitcher plants are Kaltkeimer, the seeds need to germinate a previous cold period. From the beginning, they form functional traps, but these are young plants even simpler in structure. Until the fully grown plants, pass around three to five years.

Dissemination

Distribution area

All species of the genus are native to the southeastern and eastern parts of the U.S., particularly in coastal areas. The distribution area of the Red pitcher plant ( Sarracenia purpurea) extends north to Canada, and there also far inland to the west of the continent. A few subspecies or varieties ( Sarracenia rubra ssp. Alabamensis, Sarracenia rubra ssp. Jonesii or Sarracenia purpurea var montana ) are found further inland in the mountains like the Appalachians.

Habitats

The typical habitat is temperate warm, all hose as perennial plants rely on clearly distinct summer and winter. They settle permanently humid, often sickernasse habitats such as bogs, marshes and wet meadows with acidic, sandy and nutrient-poor soils, with pitcher plants, are different from many other carnivores, to the presence of nutrients in the soil are relatively tolerant, but then exposed to increased competition from other plants. They prefer full sun, unshaded sites.

Angesalbte occurrence

In several cases, pitcher plants, mostly the red pitcher plant ( Sarracenia purpurea), angesalbt of plant lovers at appropriate locations outside their natural range. Some of these sites are naturalized, the oldest known in the Swiss Jura is about one hundred years old. In Europe, there are angesalbte locations in Ireland, in the English Lake District as well as in Sweden. Even within North America, there are Ansalbungen, such as on the coast of California, Mendocino County. In Germany there are Ansalbungen this type, for example, in Middle Franconia, in Münster, in Lusatia and the Bavarian Forest, who have been stable for several years.

Hazard and status

Pitcher plants are an endangered species. It is estimated that around 98 % of their original habitats have already been destroyed in the southeastern United States. As currently main threat factors apply here: the expansion of urban settlement areas, the draining of habitats for forestry purposes, the infiltration of herbicides from adjacent agricultural land, the suppression of natural fires that clear competing vegetation, as well as the cutting of hoses for floristic purposes (this the tubes are dried after being cut and used in dried flower arrangements, for this purpose in 1991, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about 1.6 million hoses cut), but here also the increasing compaction of the soil by frequently repeated walking and driving habitats negative effect on the moisture balance of the habitats and the flourishing of plants. For rare and hardly available types and the Absammlung by collectors played a certain role ( see below).

Although there is a legal protection in the states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, but since such laws have no impact on land privately owned and the majority of the holdings of the respective states is at just such, they are in fact unprotected. In the states of Alabama and Mississippi, which could be described as the heart of its range, the pitcher plants have absolutely no legal status so that they are not protected on private or on public land. According to the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the Green pitcher plant ( Sarracenia oreophila ) and two subspecies of Brown Red pitcher plant, Sarracenia rubra are namely subsp. Sarracenia rubra subsp alabamensis and. jonesii as Federally endangered ( " Nationwide exposure"). These three taxa are also listed in Appendix 1 of CITES (CITES ), thus the trade in this species ( if supplied directly from game) illegally. All other species are listed in Appendix 2 and enjoy little protection from the federal government.

Some plant communities have started programs for the conservation of individual species or the genus as a whole. Thus, the International Carnivorous Plant Society ( ICPS ) has launched a program in 2003, the redrawn plants of the highly endangered subspecies of Sarracenia rubra subsp. alabamensis deliver at cost price to the one to take the collective pressure of the plants and to establish a gene pool of plants in culture to another. Furthermore initiated conferences for the exchange between the protection of plant experts involved were aligned, and a project on the restoration of a habitat of rare Sarracenia purpurea var montana.

In 2004, the North American Sarracenia Conservancy ( NASC ) was established "to serve the recording of taxonomic, morphological and genetic diversity of the genus Sarracenia for purposes of conservation and culture" with the goal. Currently, she is building a library that is intended to provide an overview of all currently existing genetic variants that are currently in culture, where necessary to appropriate locations reintroduce it again. A similar, albeit operated by an individual institution presents the collection of the British hose plant expert Mike King, representing over 650 different Genstränge all taxa of the genus. The collection is part of the British NCCPG National Plant Collection.

Though hardly one of the initiatives to preserve the habitats contributes itself or can reduce the threats experienced by the stocks so they get but the species, at least in culture, provide a reservoir for possible restoration projects in the future represent and reduce at least one, though only sporadically significant threat, namely by Absammlung.

System

The hose plants most closely related genus is the Darlingtonia with its single species, the cobra lily. Together with some further related marsh pitchers ( Heliamphora ) are the two genera of the family Pitcher plants. The phylogeny of the genus itself is still unclear.

Commonly recognized currently comprises eight species, species rank is occasionally discussed for the five subspecies of brown red hose plant. The description of a variety of red pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea subsp. venosa var burkii as an independent species Sarracenia rosea in 1999 was widely rejected.

Recognized as species are:

• Pale pitcher plant ( Sarracenia alata ( alph. Wood) Alph. Wood)
• Yellow pitcher plant ( Sarracenia flava L.)
• White pitcher plant ( Sarracenia leucophylla Raf. )
• Small pitcher plant ( Sarracenia minor Walter )
• Green pitcher plant ( Sarracenia oreophila Wherry )
• Parrot pitcher plant ( Sarracenia psittacina Michx. )
• Red pitcher plant ( Sarracenia purpurea L.)
• Brown-red pitcher plant ( Sarracenia rubra Walter )

(Information on subspecies, varieties and forms in the Artartikeln )

Because pitcher plants readily hybridize with each other, their hybrids are fertile and the Artareale be partly overlap, it is found in nature to numerous intermediate forms. These were in the past repeatedly occasion to describe new but dubious taxa.

Botanical history

By the early settlement of the distribution area of the species, their (then) wide distribution as well as their striking appearance Pitcher plants have been first mentioned in 1576 by ​​Matthias de L' Obel in his " Stirpium Adversaria Nova " as Thuri limpidi folio and illustrated. 1601 Clusius described in his " Historia plantarum Rariorum " a red pitcher plant as Limonium peregrinum, saw in it so inaccurately a beach Lilac kind. Its present scientific name carries the genus by the French physician and naturalist Michel Sarrazin (1659-1734), considered the father of Canadian botany. He sent the late 17th century living specimens of the red hose plant in the Parisian botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, who described it in 1700 as Sarracena Canadensis. Linnaeus took the generic name changed slightly in his " Species Plantarum " (1753 ). At this time, two species were known (next to the red and the yellow pitcher plant ). The first flowering in culture succeeded in 1773; 1793 mentioned William Bartram in his book about his travels in the American Southwest that would find numerous insects in the hoses to the plants, but doubted that they preferred some benefit from it. 1887 then succeeded to the amateur botanist Joseph H. Mellichamp that to prove by Charles Darwin in 1875 suspected Karnivorie the genus, detailed chemical studies of J. S. Hepburn, E. St. John Q. and F. M. Jones of 1920 and 1927 substantiated this further. Full site observations as well as laboratory studies of Edgar Wherry increased the knowledge about the species, as well as the works of Donald Quick and Edward Case in the present.

Use

Pitcher plants have become firmly established over the last twenty years in the ornamental plant market, in particular the robust and hardy red pitcher plant is regularly represented in Karnivorensortimenten also of construction and supermarkets. Beside her, will also find frequently indeterminate hybrids. As mentioned above under threat and status, the hoses are harvested in the United States for cut flower arrangements.