Kytmanov's Swimsuit

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Kytmanov's swimsuit (lat. Trollius kytmanovii) - a perennial herb of the Kupalnitsa genus (Latin Trollius) of the Buttercup family (Latin Ranunculaceae). Until the twenty-first century, such plants in the botanical literature were attributed to the Asiatic Bathing Lady (lat. Trollius asiaticus), although the plant was described as an independent species with the name "Trollius kytmanovii" in the middle of the twentieth century. This introduces some confusion when writing articles about these two species of the same genus, as well as when exhibiting photographs of plants. This species is often mentioned in the literature under the name "Bathing girl of Irkutsk" (lat. Trollius ircuticus).

What's in your name

Possible variants of the basis for the Latin name of the genus "Trollius" can be found in the article about the Asiatic bather.

The Latin specific epithet "kytmanovii" was assigned to the plant by a doctor of biology named Viktor Vladimirovich Reverdatto (1891 - 1969), a person with an interesting and complex fate, who was the first to describe this species of the Kupalnitsa genus. It immortalizes the memory of a multifaceted talented person, one of whose facets was the science of "botany". The name of this person is Alexander Ignatievich Kytmanov (1858 - 1910). He was one of the organizers of the local history museum in the city of Yeniseisk, which will celebrate its 130th anniversary in 2018.

Description

A person who is far from botanical subtleties can easily confuse the Kytmanov bathing suit with the Asiatic bathing suit, since both species have many similar external signs and choose the same living conditions. The Kytmanova bather is also a lover of wet forest glades and meadows, only those glades and meadows are located in Eastern Siberia. The southern lands of the Irkutsk region are especially rich in this species, which gave the plant an additional name - "Irkutsk bathing pool" (Latin Trollius ircuticus).

The plant owes its perenniality to the root system, which can endure Siberian frosts, hiding in snow drifts. In the spring, from the roots, long-stemmed basal leaves appear in the world, decorating glades and meadows with their dissected openwork leaf plates. The leaf plate, consisting of five diamond-shaped segments, generally takes the shape of a pentagon.

A single erect stem with a smooth surface appears among the basal leaves, usually simple, but sometimes branched. The height of the stem, depending on the living conditions of each plant, ranges from twenty to sixty centimeters.

The stem bears leaves that copy the shape of the basal leaves, but with sizes that decrease as it approaches the top. The lower stem leaves have petioles, turning into sessile ones closer to the apex.

The smooth stem is crowned with a large single flower, the diameter of which reaches five centimeters. Yellowish-orange or bright yellow oval-rhombic sepals are noticeably longer than petals of the same color, having a linear shape, or slightly widened towards the base. The stamens are one and a half times shorter than the petals.

The culmination of the growing season is the multileaf fruit. Each leaflet is six to eight millimeters long and has a straight nose, not deeply curved, like the Common Swimsuit.

Abilities of the Swimsuit Kytmanov

The abilities of this species of the Kupalnitsa genus are due to the chemical elements contained in the roots, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds of the plant. The chemical composition is in many ways similar to the chemical composition of the parts of the Asiatic Bathing Lady.

The toxic alkaloids in the plant make it unsuitable for feeding herbivores. However, in small quantities, the same alkaloids serve as medicines to fight a number of human diseases.