Stellaria holostea
Large chickweed ( Stellaria holostea )
The Great chickweed ( Stellaria holostea ), also called True or Large-flowered chickweed chickweed, is a larger relative of the common chickweed ( Stellaria media ) and belongs to the carnation family ( Caryophyllaceae ). It is a common spring flowering bulbs in bushes and deciduous forests.
Distribution and location
The Great chickweed is common in the hot temperate regions of Europe and western Asia, and some countries in North Africa. To eastern North America, the species has been introduced. It prefers bright, herb -rich deciduous and mixed forests, hedges and bushes. There they settled mostly fresh to moderately dry, moderately nutrient-rich, mostly lime-free, loamy and sandy soils up to middle mountain areas.
Description
The Great chickweed is a perennial herbaceous plant. Their rhizomes are without root tubers. The evergreen Chamaephyt grows with ascending, quadrangular stems and reaches heights of growth between 20 and 60 centimeters. The longer stems bear numerous long-stalked flowers and often find support to neighboring plants. Overall, the stems of this plant are quite weak and tear easily at the points at which sprout from basal leaf pairs. Your 3 to 8 inches long, undivided narrow - lanceolate leaves are stiff, hairy on the edge and sessile. Your umbel- like inflorescence consists of 6 to 15 individual flowers with a diameter of two to three centimeters.
The flowers are radial symmetry in a dichasial branched inflorescence, called a Zymoid. In this case, in sequence, a branching pattern in which the major axis ends in a flower, which in turn is übergipfelt from two lateral axes repeated several times. The white flowers consist of five, until the middle split petals. These are about twice as long as six to eight millimeters long nerveless chalice. The ovary is constantly above, there are three pens per flower formed. The flowers of the Great chickweed have herbaceous bracts. The plant flowers in the period from April to June and developed in the summer of spherical fruit capsules, which are the size of the cup in about. At maturity, these open six valves and dismissed the 2-2.4 millimeters tight gehökerten seeds.
Inflorescence
Seed
Illustration
Ecology
The Great chickweed is pollinated either by insects or their hermaphrodite flowers pollinate themselves The type occurs almost exclusively in larger, but rarely was forming groups. The spread their seeds carried by the wind. About vegetative reproduction from their Rhizomknospsen and sprouts from last year's near-ground shoots, she quickly forms from small clumps. Since not all flowers bloom at the same time, but on the stems one by one, the heyday attracts over several months, although the individual flowers have a short life.
It is an important food plant for several species of moths. For example, it is a nectar plant of chickweed - Tageulchens ( Panemeria tenebrata ). For more further cutworms and tensioner, it represents an important crawler - food plant, especially for potentially vulnerable chickweed - blade tensioner ( Euphyia biangulata ), a highly endangered horn Herb Leaf tensioner ( Euphyia frustata ) and the endangered brown Glattrückeneule ( Aporophyla lutulenta ).