Форум » Foreign section » Plants (plus fungi, algae etc.) of various regions » Ответить
Plants (plus fungi, algae etc.) of various regions
JOrnitho: I have some different descriptions, this time they are about plants. Also, do you think that could be possible for an antilopine-like descendant of the goat or of the sheep to live in the Andean plateau? [more]Atlantic cherry (Eugenia atlantica) In South America, the genus Eugenia survived the Holocene and a new species appeared, the Atlantic cherry. This species is native to the forests of the Atlantic coast of South America. Being a common component of the Atlantic forests, they provide food to many species. is a large shrub or small tree with a conical form, growing slowly to 8 m high. When bruised, crushed or cut, the leaves and branches have a spicy resinous fragrance, which can cause respiratory discomfort in susceptible individuals. The leaves are without stipules, ovate, glossy and held in opposite pairs. New leaves are bronze in color, maturing to a deep glossy green, up to 4 cm long. During dry season the leaves turn red. Flowers have four pale pink petals and are borne on slender long stalks, with a conspicuous central cluster of white stamens ending in yellow anthers. Flowers develop into rounded fruits 3 cm long, starting out as green, then ranging through orange, scarlet and finally dark red as they ripen. Its seeds are dispersed mostly by fruit eating birds and bats. Montane jamelan (Neosygyzium montano) During the Holocene, the man introduced many species, animal and vegetal. The tree Sygyzium cumini was one of these introduced species. In the Neocene, this species give rise to the genus Neosygyzium with the type species being the montane jamelan. The word jamelan (jamelão) is a common name used to its ancestor in Brazil. The montane jamelan is native to the montane forests of the Atlantic Coast of South America. Their fruits are consumed by many species of these areas. Montane jamelan is a large tree, typically reaching 30 m of high and can live more than 100 years. Its leaves and twigs are glabrous and the bark is dark brown and fairly smooth, with little relief or texture. The leaves are lanceolate, 2 cm to 4 cm broad, 10 cm to 20 cm long, pointed, base cuneate with hardly any petiole, lively red when growing, but glossy green on attaining full size. The flowers are in small terminal clusters, white or greenish white, the long, numerous stamens giving them a diameter of 8 cm. The flowering period of this tree is in the end of the spring. Its fruits develop during the summer and resemble large berries, being 15 cm long; the fruit of the genus Neosyzygium are drupaceous. The fruit is oblong, ovoid. Unripe fruit looks green. As it matures, its color changes to pink, then to shining crimson red and finally to black color. Other species in this genus: Lowland jamelan (Neosygyzium esculentus) This species reach the same high of the montane jamelan, however is native to the lowland forests of the Atlantic coast of South America. Its fruits are also large, being 27 cm long and magenta colored. Aromatic guava (Psidium aromatica) In South America, the guavas (Psidium) survived the Holocene and a new species appeared, the red guava. This species is native to the tropical regions of South America. Across its occurrence areas, the fruits are used as food by many species. The aromatic guava is a large tree, being capable to reach 28 m of high. The tortuous trunk has a smooth shell that peels off thin plates. The leaves are coriaceous and glabrous, up to 10 cm in length. The flowers are axillary, solitary and white. The flowering period occurs during the start of spring. The fruits mature when the first rains of summer start to fall. The fruit consists of fleshy green colored berries which turn yellow when ripe. The surface is irregular, with 10 cm of diameter. Inside, there is a red pulp, containing dozens of small hard seeds. The four sepals of the flower are usually present at one end of the fruit. When the fruits are ripen, they exhale a strong sweet aroma which attract many animals to consume it, such as the puraheikai. [/more] As the Author stated, plants should be in a separate topic - Biolog, the moderator
Ответов - 73, стр:
1 2 3 4 All
JOrnitho: Биолог пишет: I'm not so good in South American languages to propose names... I'll make a search for the names, but I think that the yam, sweet potato and totora reed could have the native names.
JOrnitho: I made these descriptions of plants for the chapter about the Easter Island. I don't know if they are good, you can give them a complementation if necessary. Kumara (Ipomoea kumara) A descendant of the sweet potato plant (Ipomoea batatas), which was introduced in Easter Island during the Holocene by the ancestors of the Rapa Nui people. With the disappearance of the humans, these plants were capable of not only surviving in the Neocene, but also of giving rise to descendants. The name kumara was used by the people of the island to name its ancestor. Like its ancestor, this plant is a herbaceous perennial vine, bearing palmately lobed leaves and medium-sized sympetalous flowers. The stems are usually crawling on the ground and form adventitious roots at the nodes. The leaves are screwed along the stems. The leaf stalk is 50 cm long. The leaf blades are very variable, 9 to 13 centimeters long, the shape is triangular, the edge can be entire, toothed or often three to seven times lobed. Most of the leaf surfaces are bare and the tip is rounded. The leaves are mostly green in color, but due to the accumulation of anthocyanins, especially along the leaf veins, they can be purple in color. Depending on the variety, the total length of a stem can be between 1 and 4 meters. Some plants also form shoots up to 16 meters in length. However, these do not form underground storage organs. The hermaphrodite, five-fold and short-stalked flowers are single or few in stalked, zymous inflorescences that arise from the leaf axils and stand upright. The small sepals are elongated and tapering to a point and spiky, being 10 to 15 mm long, usually finely haired or ciliate. The 4 to 7 cm long, overgrown and funnel-shaped, folded crown, with a shorter hem, is purple-lavender in color, the throat is usually darker in color, but white crowns can also appear. The enclosed stamens are of unequal length with glandular filaments. The two-chamber ovary is upper constant with a relatively short stylus. Seeds are only produced from cross-pollination. The flowers open before sunrise and stay open for a few hours. They close again in the morning and begin to wither. The edible tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between yellow and purple. Its flesh ranges from yellow through red, pink, violet, orange, and purple. Together with the uhi, it's the favorite food of the Rapa Nui rat. Giant banana (Gigantomusa aromatica) A descendant of the banana (Musa sp.), which was introduced in Easter Island during the Holocene. With the disappearance of the humans, these plants were capable of not only surviving in the Neocene, but also of giving rise to descendants. The giant banana plant is perhaps the largest herbaceous flowering plant in the Neocene, surpassing even the size of their ancestor. It can be 9 to 12 m tall. Like their ancestors, all their above-ground parts grow from a structure usually called a "corm". Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy with a treelike appearance, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a "false stem" or pseudostem. The leaves of giant banana plants are composed of a "stalk" and a blade. The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the tightly packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, which is all that supports the plant. The edges of the sheath meet when it is first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem the edges are forced apart. Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow 3 metres long and 70 cm wide. They are easily torn by the wind, resulting in the familiar frond look. When a banana plant is mature, the corm stops producing new leaves and begins to form a flower spike or inflorescence. A stem develops which grows up inside the pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until eventually it emerges at the top. Each pseudostem normally produces two inflorescences, also known as the "banana heart". After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will normally have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole is perennial. In the plantation system of cultivation, only one of the offshoots will be allowed to develop in order to maintain spacing. The inflorescence contains many bracts between rows of flowers. The female flowers appear in rows further up the stem from the rows of male flowers. The ovary is inferior, meaning that the tiny petals and other flower parts appear at the tip of the ovary. The fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster, made up of tiers, with up to 20 fruit to a tier. There is a protective outer layer with numerous long, thin string, which run lengthwise between the skin and the edible inner portion. Uhi (Dioscorea uhi) A descendant of the purple yam (Dioscorea alata), which was introduced in Easter Island during the Holocene by the ancestors of the Rapa Nui people. With the disappearance of the humans, these plants were capable of not only surviving in the Neocene, but also of giving rise to descendants. The name uhi was used by the people of the island to name its ancestor. The uhi is a perennial vine with broad, alternate leaves, and has a storage organ that remains buried in the ground. The plant forms bulbils in the leaf axils of the twining stems, and tubers beneath the ground. These tubers are like small, oblong potatoes. The tubers are usually a vivid pink to bright red. They are edible, being consumed by the Rapa Nui rat. This plant can grow extremely quickly, roughly 21 cm per day, and eventually reach over 18 m. It typically climbs to the tops of trees and has a tendency to take over other plants. New plants develop from bulbils that form on the plant, and these bulbils serve as a means of dispersal. The primary means of spread and reproduction are by the bulbils. The vine produces small pink flowers. The fruits are capsules. Nga'atu (Schoenoplectus paschalis) A descendant of the totora reed (Schoenoplectus californicus subsp. tatora), which had existed in Easter Island even before the arrival of the ancestors of the Rapa Nui people. With the disappearance of the humans, these plants were capable of not only surviving in the Neocene, but also of giving rise to descendants. The name nga'atu was used by the people of the island to name its ancestor. The Nga'atu is a rhizomed water plant found in marshy areas. It has tall, thin, dark green stems which are usually triangular in cross-section. The inflorescence is a small head of several spikelets which may be brown to bright orange, red, purplish, or pale and translucent. They have hairy edges. The fruit is a brown achene. The plant reproduces sexually by seed and colonies spread via vegetative reproduction, sprouting from the rhizomes. This plant can reach a height of 6 m and commonly reaches 4 m.
Биолог: JOrnitho Why, they're good! I add them to the catalogue.
JOrnitho: Another description of a plant for Easter Island, maybe it can also appear in the chapter. Rapa Nui coconut palm (Cocos paschalis) A descendant of thecoconut tree (Cocos nucifera), which was introduced in Easter Island during the Holocene. With the disappearance of the humans, these plants were capable of not only surviving in the Neocene, but also of giving rise to descendants. The Rapa Nui coconut palm is a large palm, growing up to 35 metres tall, with pinnate leaves 4 to 6 m long, and pinnae 60 to 90 centimetres long; old leaves break away cleanly, leaving the trunk smooth. These plants produce their first fruit in six to ten years, taking 15 to 20 years to reach peak production. The palm produces both the female and male flowers on the same inflorescence; thus, the palm is monoecious. The female flower is much larger than the male flower. Flowering occurs continuously. Like their ancestors, the fruit of the Rapa Nui coconut palm is a drupe, not a true nut. Like other fruits, it has three layers: the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp. The exocarp is the glossy outer skin, usually yellow-green to yellow-brown in color. Both the exocarp and the mesocarp make up the "husk" of the coconut, while the endocarp makes up the hard coconut "shell". The endocarp is around 4 millimetres thick and has three distinctive germination pores on the distal end. Two of the pores are plugged, while one is functional. The interior of the endocarp is hollow and is lined with a thin brown seed coat around 0.2 mm thick. The endocarp is initially filled with a multinucleate liquid endosperm. As development continues, cellular layers of endosperm deposit along the walls of the endocarp up to 11 mm thick, starting at the distal end. They eventually form the edible solid endosperm which hardens over time. The small cylindrical embryo is embedded in the solid endosperm directly below the functional pore of the endosperm. During germination, the embryo pushes out of the functional pore and forms a haustorium inside the central cavity. The haustorium absorbs the solid endosperm to nourish the seedling. The fruit is elongated and triangular. It's also smaller than that of their ancestors, reaching 35 cm.
JOrnitho: I was thinking that some plants could appear in the chapter about the obreros. Maybe a descendant of the introduced mango and of the native Solanum lycocarpum.
Биолог: JOrnitho Yes, why not! The descendant of mango can have very large (the size of melon) fruit eaten by many small and medium-sized animals. The name should be "the banquet tree". As for the S. lycocarpum descendant, it can have highly poisonous fruit that only one (or a narrow group of) animal species can eat, thus spreading its seeds.
JOrnitho: Биолог пишет: The descendant of mango can have very large (the size of melon) fruit eaten by many small and medium-sized animals. The name should be "the banquet tree". Good idea! The bats and some birds could cut pieces of its to eat the fruit inside. As for the S. lycocarpum descendant, it can have highly poisonous fruit that only one (or a narrow group of) animal species can eat, thus spreading its seeds. Which animal do you think that could eat it? A descendant of the maned wolf?
Биолог: JOrnitho The bats and some birds could cut pieces of its to eat the fruit inside. Yep, and the plant can develop many seeds instead of one per fruit in this case. Which animal do you think that could eat it? A descendant of the maned wolf? Quite so, or of the bush dog.
медведь: Биолог Quite so, or of the bush dog. It is stated in the project that the bush dog went extinct at the end of the Holocene, and the uktenas took its niche. And what comes for the maned wolf, let's wait for Author to express his opinion.
Биолог: медведь OK. So, we eliminate bush dog from the idea.
JOrnitho: Биолог пишет: So, we eliminate bush dog from the idea. It could also be a descendant of the crab-eating fox, if the maned wolf is also extinct.
Биолог: JOrnitho Sure, and it can become larger to take the niche of the maned wolf.
JOrnitho: Биолог пишет: Sure, and it can become larger to take the niche of the maned wolf. Yes! Maybe even developing long legs to reach the fruits in the tree.
Биолог: JOrnitho Yes, but let's discuss animals in another topic, this one's for plants.
JOrnitho: Биолог Ok. I'll start to work in the banquet tree. What do you think that could be their binominal name?
Биолог: JOrnitho What about Mangifera polyseminis (meaning "multiseeded")?
JOrnitho: Биолог пишет: What about Mangifera polyseminis (meaning "multiseeded")? I like it! Would itvmean that the fruits have more than one seed?
Биолог: JOrnitho Yes, I mentioned that before. Otherwise, it is no use to make banquets for animals.
JOrnitho: Биолог Ok. I'll start to work on it. Can you help filling some details of the description?
Биолог: JOrnitho Which details?
полная версия страницы