2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Lapazheria (lat. Lapageria) - a genus consisting of only one type of plant, which the Almighty settled in just one place on the globe, in the South American country with the short name Chile. This is a climbing shrub, able to climb on turned up supports, with leathery tropical dark green leaves and bell-shaped large carmine-pink flowers of extraordinary beauty. Just a real "scarlet flower" growing far away.
What's in your name
The Latin name of the genus "Lapageria" honors the memory of Napoleon's first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais, who retained the title of Empress after her divorce. Josephine began to call her Napoleon at the beginning of their life together, and her long name, given at birth, ended like this - "… de la Pagerie" (de La Pagerie). It was this ending that served as the name of the genus "Lapageria", when botanists decided to preserve the memory of Josephine de Beauharnais, who, after her divorce from Napoleon, devoted most of her time to plants, collecting a rich collection of exotic plants from all continents of the planet in her greenhouses and greenhouses.
Description
The only species of the described genus of plants is pink Lapazheria (lat. Lapageria rosea). It is an evergreen perennial vine growing in dense forests on the slopes of the legendary Andes, passing through the central regions of Chile.
The climate of That area does not really spoil the beauty. Frequent torrential rains made its leaves leathery and shiny, oval in shape and sharp tips, along which celestial streams freely slide down to the ground without harming the plant.
Evergreen leaves can withstand lowering the thermometer level to minus 5 degrees, without losing their firmness and strength.
The sturdy stems, which usually grow up to 2-3 meters in length, can sometimes set sports records, stretching up to 10 meters in length. The strength and bluish-green surface of the stem makes it look like a metal wire. Numerous side branches in a continuous carpet twine shrubs and trees that have met in the path of the vines. Stems that lie on the ground take root easily, adding vigor and density to the plant. Interestingly, the stems of plants living in the southern hemisphere of the Earth twist counterclockwise, and those who have the misfortune to grow in the northern hemisphere twist clockwise.
In the axils of beautiful leaves, gracefully lined with longitudinal veins, merging at the pointed tip of the leaf plate, single large (up to 10 centimeters long) flowers are born.
Six free petals forming two circles represent the amazing perfection of nature. The natural fabric of the petals is so dense and smooth that it gives the impression that bees have worked on the masterpiece, donating their wax to create the miracle of a bell, inside which there is a tongue of stamens and a pistil, ready to touch the walls of the bell to fill the air with a melodic chime. The color of the natural petals is red with white spots. The new varieties developed have expanded the palette, making it richer. Now you can see white, pink, light purple … as well as two-tone bells.
To pollinate such large flowers, the Almighty specially created miniature multi-colored birds, hummingbirds, endowing only them with the ability to fly not only forward, but also backward. Where hummingbirds do not live, one has to resort to artificial pollination if the grower wants to have seeds from his own vine. By the way, the seeds are planted immediately after harvest, without waiting for them to dry. Because they quickly lose their ability to germinate.
The fruits of Lapazheria are oblong berries with a tough skin and edible pulp containing numerous small seeds the size of a tomato seed. Previously, they could be bought on the markets, but today the plants are becoming less and less, and therefore the fruits have become a rarity.
