Yareta

Yareta ( Azorella compacta ), Peru

Yareta ( Azorella compacta ), also written Llareta, a plant belonging to the Umbelliferae family is ( Apiaceae ). The slow-growing desert plant is native to the Andes. There has been and is it used among other things as fuel, which is why their stocks have fallen sharply.

Description

The Yareta is a perennial, evergreen and extremely slow-growing plant that coral -like, hilly hard pad with a height of up to 1.5 meters and an area of ​​about 30 square meters, replicates early descriptions even up around 35 square meters. Its root is a strong, woody taproot, large plants form additional small secondary roots at the edge of the cushion from.

The woody, rambling and sheathed of old leaves shoot axis is prism-shaped, the lower branches and those of the edge are larger and occasionally horizontal run. You are on the densest leafy with standing in rosettes, run yellow to light green, bald, fat and sessile leaves that are ovate to oblong - round and obtuse. They reach a length of 2 to 6 mm, a width of 1 to 4 millimeters and occasionally contain resinous drops.

The inflorescences are sessile or on very short inflorescence axes standing clusters of one to five successively opening flowers that are as pink buds and lavender. The involucre consists of four to five membranous leaflets, three to seven flowers are on short stalks. The sepals are triangular, pointed and serrated, 0.5 mm long and wide. The pale yellow petals are ovate, blunt tapered and approximately 1 millimeter long, the stamens about 2 millimeters long, the upright pen 0.7 to 1.5 millimeters long.

The round, slightly purple carpels are 4-5 millimeters in size and consist of two, sometimes of unequal size, Part fruits per fruit, there are two disc-shaped seeds with a diameter of approximately 5 mm.

Distribution and ecology

It grows mainly in alpine deserts of the Andes in southern Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Northeast in northwestern Argentina 3500-5200 m altitude, preferably at temperature balancing acting cairn or boulders, associated solely with Lepidophyllum quadrangulare. The plants come in an average density of 70 plants per hectare before and cover about 10 to 15% of the area.

Yareta are characterized by an extremely slow growth, their growth rate is in only about 1.4 millimeters radially. Such growth basis, can be the basis of size for very large plants an age of up to 3000 years calculated.

In the interior of the plant, a significant amount of dead collects material that serves as a moisture reservoir and for cooling. This detritus, the habitus, the content of resinous components and the extremely dense growth all serve as adaptations to the extreme conditions of the high Andes, they reduce water losses and help to regulate the temperature. Due to the height of the sites and their resinous substances, the plants are largely free of predators, however, were observed an indefinite, large, soft and pink Schildlausart to the ground-level branches and small red mites that live on the plant surface, even browsing was separated by Goat documents.

The plants bloom all year round, but only in certain sections of the plant, as well as vegetative growth Blühbereiche find more and more on the more sunny eastern and northern sides of the plants. From the flower opening to fruit ripening pass around fifteen weeks when pollinators are insects probably because on the flowers ants, mosquitos, small wasps and flies were observed. Falling part fruits are often driven by the wind in crevices where they can germinate, less than one percent of all part- fruits, however, are at all fruitful.

Use

The Yareta has been used in folk medicine in many forms, chillanensis in the same manner as the related Mulinum. Areas calculated from said root were used for pain, asthma, colds, bronchitis and diseases of the kidneys. Conventional medicine treatments accompanied by diabetics with infusions provided significant success in reducing the blood sugar level, further research to stand out, however.

Significant, but also ecologically considerably more problematic the use of plants as fuel (similar as with Azorella diapensioides ). In the treeless heights the plants by locals to be used as fuel for heating and cooking and the collected ash used as fertilizer, in addition they are dried after hitting only three to five months. Their popularity as fuel they owe their slow and smokeless fire combined with a high calorific value with 362 045 Joules per kilogram Yareta about half as high as that of the same volume amount of fat coal. In particular drastically intensified use as a fuel by railroads and the system of mines. The mine operators subsidized the use, so that by 1958 only by the employees of the Chuquicamata copper mine around 1000 tons Yareta were consumed per month, between 1915 ( opening of the mine ) and 1958 so burned about half a million tons of plants. The use is operated as an extreme case of exploitation, because he was not sustainable due to the slow growth of the plants.

Status and risk

The decades-long loads have the stocks of the plant significantly reduced in Chile in particular, also, it is assumed that there are only very few of the very large and old individuals. In Peru, the use of the population is now controlled by the government; in Chile, where the species threatened with extinction locally, they are placed under strict protection. Although the use as fuel is now illegal, but for the local population, there are no energy alternatives to Yareta, also known as traditional medicine, it is still used.

Systematics and botanical history

A first informal description and a fragmentary collection of Yareta in Bolivia made ​​Joseph Andrews in 1827, his material described Karel Domin Eighty years later than Azorella prismatoclada. Already in 1891, however, the Chilean botanist Rudolph Amandus Philippi had first described the species as Azorella compacta using a Aufsammlung his son Federico from the Chilean- Bolivian border country. In 1899, Karl Rich the way to the genus Laretia, but this view does not prevailed. Other synonyms are Azorella yareta and Azorella columnaris. The Yareta is closely related to Azorella corymbosa.

Evidence

• G. E. Wickens: Llareta ( Azorella compacta, Umbelliferae): A Review. In: Economic Botany. 1995, Vol.49, No.2, pp. 207-212
• Carol Pearson Ralph: Observations on Azorella compacta (Umbelliferae ), a Tropical Andean Cushion Plant. In: Biotropica. 10:1, 1978, pp. 62-67
• Charles Rich: Estudios sobre la críticos Flora de Chile, 1902, Vol 3, Pt. 1, pp. 63, online ( PDF, 1.63 MB) ( Spanish)