2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Aronnik (lat. Arum) - a genus of herbaceous flowering perennial plants, ranked by botanists in the Aroid family (Latin Araceae). Nature has endowed the plants of the genus with spectacular leaves and original inflorescences, similar to corn cobs, which are protected from the vicissitudes of fate by a colored "blanket". All parts of the plants of the genus, including the bright fruit-berries, are poisonous.
What's in your name
The Latin name of the genus "Arum" is based on the Greek name for plants of this genus, known as "aron" from the works of the "father of botany", an ancient Greek naturalist and philosopher named Theophrastus (or Theophrastus), who lived in the 4th-3rd centuries BC.
Description
The perennial of a herbaceous plant of relatively small size (height from 20 to 60 centimeters) is based on a tuberous horizontal rhizome, from which numerous adventitious roots extend. In the wild, plants of the genus Aronnik are found in Europe, northern Africa, western and central Asia. The highest species diversity is observed in the Mediterranean lands.
From the rhizome to the surface of the earth, numerous spectacular leaves are born, the length of which varies from 10 to 55 centimeters. The arrow-shaped leaves and many clearly defined veins, with beautiful curves diverging from the central vein to the edge of the leaf plate, create intricate patterns on the surface of the leaf, turning plant leaves into a natural work of art.
Plants of the genus Aronnik have a very original inflorescence called "spadix" (spadix). Spadix is a thorny inflorescence whose miniature flowers are born on a fleshy stem. Typically, the spadix is surrounded by a curved, leaf-shaped bracts called the "cover" or "veil". The length of such a "blanket" ranges from 10 to 40 centimeters, and the color can be white, yellow, brown or purple. The inflorescences can give off an unpleasant odor that attracts pollinating flies.
Small flowers of plants are unisexual, but are in one inflorescence. Male flowers with three to four stamens are located in the upper part of the spadix, and female flowers are in the lower part. Asexual flowers can be located between them, a kind of neutral zone that protects the inflorescence from self-pollination. Although plants have an additional mechanism to protect themselves from self-fertilization - as a rule, when pollen is released by male flowers, the stigmas of female flowers of the same inflorescence cease to be susceptible. Flies and other insects are engaged in pollination of female flowers, arriving on the unpleasant smell of inflorescences or on the red-violet color of the "blanket", similar to the color of carrion. Insects transfer pollen from one plant to another plant.
The culmination of the growing season are fruits in the form of bright orange or red shiny berries. The attractiveness of fresh berries, unfortunately, is combined with their toxicity, which is caused by toxic alkaloids contained in plant tissues. Dried berries lose their poisonous properties. All other parts of plants are also poisonous.
Varieties
Today, there are 30 plant species in the ranks of the Aronnik genus. Let's list some of them:
* Italian Aronnik (lat. Arum italicum)
* Aronnik Besser (lat. Arum besserianum)
* Arum spotted (lat. Arum maculatum)
* Oriental arum (lat. Arum orientale)
* Elongated aronnik (lat. Arum elongatum).
Usage
Plants of the genus prefer to grow in the shade, and therefore are used as ornamental plants in shady gardens and parks.
The toxicity of plants alarms traditional healers, therefore, the active use of its poisons is not observed.
However, the starchy tubers of the rhizome of Aronnik spotted in fried form are used for food, and the dried rhizome is ground into flour, adding it to wheat flour.
