Goodayera

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Video: Goodayera

Video: Goodayera
Video: Habitat Jewel Orchid ( Goodyera sp.) 2024, March
Goodayera
Goodayera
Anonim
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Goodyera - a genus of herbaceous perennial plants, more often living on earth, less often epiphytes, belonging to the Orchid family (Latin Orchidaceae). Plants of the genus are distinguished by a picturesque rosette of variegated leaves and a racemose inflorescence with miniature funny flowers, often similar to fluffy chicks that have just hatched from an egg, opening their beaks to inform the world of their birth and receive the first portion of nutritious food for babies.

What's in your name

The mysterious Latin name of the genus "Goodyera" was chosen by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown (it would be more correct to be Brown. But this is what happened in the Russian version, although in English it is Robert Brown, 1773 - 1858), who decided to preserve the memory of the English botanist, John Goodyere for centuries (John Goodyer, 1592 - 1664), the most capable herbalist of his time. For example, English cuisine owes him such a healthy food product as Jerusalem artichoke.

Description

Plants of the Gudayera genus represent a few species of orchids on our planet that live not on trees or rocky mountain slopes, but on the earth's surface, like most representatives of the plant world, that is, they are geophytes.

Creeping underground rhizomes are the guarantor of the long-term plants of the genus. From the rhizomes, a few fibrous, fleshy roots penetrate into the soil, which are unevenly distributed along the length of the rhizome. The top of the rhizome, which grows more actively, needs more moisture and nutrients, and therefore more roots are located near it.

Rosettes of amazingly picturesque evergreen leaves make their way from the nodes of the rhizome to the surface of the earth. One rhizome gives birth to several multi-leaved rosettes at the same time, forming large decorative colonies on the surface of the earth. The growing season of leaf rosettes can stretch over several seasons, equal to one to three years.

The leaves that form the root rosette are a real natural work of art. In different species, they may differ slightly in their shape, but most often they are oval-oblong or ovoid leaves with pointed ends. The surface of the leaf plate can be monochromatic green, decorated only with clearly distinguished veins, or motley, when the main green background is decorated with a wide variety of patterns in light colors.

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A leafy stem emerges from the center of a mature rosette, which can be straight or ascending (that is, when the lower part of the stem spreads along the surface of the ground, and the upper part rises vertically upward). The shape of the stem, somewhat fleshy, leaves varies from lanceolate to oval-elliptical. The surface of the leaf plate is green, of various shades, with pink or white veins.

The top of the stem belongs to a racemose-cylindrical or one-sided inflorescence formed by miniature flowers, the loose petals of which can be bare or pubescent with white hairs, giving the flower the appearance of disheveled chicks. The nectar of the lip is bag-shaped with a drawn-out tip in the form of a chick's beak. The concave shape of the upper petals together with the outer tepals form the head.

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The fruit of the plant is the seed capsule, the shape of which can be different. Full ripening of the fruit of the plant completes the growing cycle of the root rosette of leaves, and it dies off.

Varieties

There are 25 to 100 plant species in the genus. Where in nature two or more species of the genus grow side by side, they easily intersect, forming natural hybrids, which makes it difficult for botanists to classify. Several types for example:

* Goodyera angustifolia (Latin Goodyera angustifolia)

* Goodyera biflora (lat. Goodyera biflora)

* Goodyera bifida (lat. Goodyera bifida)

* Goodyera polyphylla (lat. Goodyera polyphylla)

* Goodyera stenopetala (lat. Goodyera stenopetala)

* Goodyera creeping (lat. Goodyera repens)

* Gudayera drooping (lat. Goodyera pendula).