Utricularia albocaerulea

Utricularia albocaerulea is a carnivorous plant in the genus of the water hoses in the section Oligocista. It comes exclusively in India in the Western Ghats before.

Description

Utricularia albocaerulea is a small, probably annual, terrestrial growing art has only a few filamentous rhizoids that grow from the roots to the inflorescence axis from the neck up to 0.5 mm are thickened, tapering down to about 0.1 millimeters to the top and are one to two inches long. There are few, branch out. You are capillary, about 0.2 millimeters thick and several centimeters long.

Leaves are only a few made ​​, mostly during the flowering period. They derive from the approach of the inflorescence axis and the node of the foothills and are stalked. The spreading are inversely egg-shaped with a rounded tip, three annoying, up to five millimeters long and about an inch wide.

Also traps, there are few, they sit at the foothills and the leaves are round and have a diameter of about two millimeters. The case has opening to case approach, taking her sit two simple appendage.

Bloom time is from September to November. The upright, single inflorescence axis is 8 to 15 centimeters long, 0.5 to 1 millimeter thick, bare and thready. At her sit a few, the bracts similar scale leaves. The bracts are up to 1.5 mm long, tapering and broadly ovate - triangular. The bracts are much shorter, only about 0.15 millimeters wide and commended shaped. The inflorescence is a loose cluster of two to five fragrant, 0.9 to 1.5 cm long flowers; the distance between them can be up to three inches. The flower stalks stand upright during flowering, are narrow winged, filiform and up to eight millimeters long. The sepals are unequal lobed, broadly ovate, the upper lobe is pointed, the lower narrower and at the end of split - elliptical. The petals are 1.2 to 1.5 inches long, pale blue, the upper lip four millimeters wide, white, and above a square approach nearly circular, bent back their lateral edges and rounded off the top end. The lower lip is lying elliptical, up to 1.5 inches wide, thickened, forked at the base, with reflexed lateral margins and notched end of the pharynx is ciliated. The commended shaped, pointed spur is straight or slightly bent, is to the lower lip at an angle of approximately 90 ° and is about six millimeters long. The anthers are curved and about one millimeter long, the stylus is short, the upper lip of the scar semicircular, lower lip shorter. The pollen are three -, four - or fünfcolporat, 20-25 microns long and 28-33 microns wide.

The ovary is ovoid. While the fruit time, the flower stalks bend down, the sepals enlarge after flowering and are membranous. The fruit is a round three millimeters long, broadly elliptical, compressed capsule with membranous outer skin and is completely enclosed by the sepals; to maturity it opens along. The seeds are oval and 0.3 to 0.35 millimeters per long, the outer skin has a pattern of elongated, approximately three to rectangular cells whose boundaries are greatly increased.

Distribution and site conditions

Utricularia albocaerulea is found only in the Western Ghats, a mountain range in the south-west of the Indian state of Maharashtra around 150 kilometers southeast of Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

They settled moist soils and wet rocks on large, flat plateau in the low to medium altitudes. Vegetation found there exclusively for the monsoon period - mostly species of the families Poaceae, Cyperaceae and the genus Eriocaulon. In the second, only four to six weeks of half of the monsoon season Utricularia albocaerulea forms, together with other water hoses ( Utricularia reticulata, Utricularia purpurascens ) from extraordinarily large items that can extend over several square kilometers. The entire stock of flowers - except for a few stragglers at the end of the season - in sync; are due to the density of the stocks while 300 to 600 flowers per square meter at the same time in bloom.

During the monsoon season there are strong rains that the red to black, sometimes very acidic (pH 4.5-6.0 ), laterite soils wash out, so that no nutrients can accumulate, plus strong winds and dense fog. At the end of the monsoon season is hot and dry phases accumulate on the surfaces of rocks, temperatures can occur up to about 50 ° C. During this time the herbaceous vegetation dies on the plateaus completely.

System

Utricularia albocaerulea was first described in 1851 by Nicol Alexander Dalzell. The Style epithet " albocaerulea " means " white-blue " and refers to the color of the flowers. There are neither synonyms nor infraspecific taxa. It counts within the water hoses to the section Oligocista.

Utricularia albocaerulea strongly resembles the also endemic in India Utricularia lazulina to the Taylor suggested a close relationship. The types differ only in their seed shape and the width of the bottom lip of the crown. Closely related are the species Utricularia purpurascens and Utricularia reticulata.

Cultural History

In the Indian popularly called the plant " Sitáchi A'sre " to German " Sita's tears." This refers to its legendary origin: Sita, wife of Rama, is abducted by a demon. After Rama has freed her, he accuses them unduly faithlessness, her tears falling on the southern Konkan and transformed there into the flowering plants.

Evidence

• Peter Taylor: The Genus Utricularia - A Taxonomic Monograph. London 1989, ISBN 0947643729