Anemone obtusiloba alba

Interesting Facts

Description

Family Ranunculaceae

Herbs perennial or annual , sometimes subshrubs or herbaceous or woody vines . Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, rarely opposite or whorled , simple or variously compound , palmately nerved, rarely penninerved , with or without stipules. Inflorescence a simple or compound monochasium, dichasium, simple or compound raceme, or flowers solitary. Flowers bisexual , sometimes unisexual , actinomorphic , rarely zygomorphic, hypogynous. Sepals 3--6 or more, free , petaloid or sepaloid , imbricate or sometimes valvate in bud. Petals present or absent, 2--8 or more, free, usually with nectaries. Stamens numerous , rarely few, free; filaments linear or filiform ; anthers latrorse , introrse , or extrorse ; sometimes some sterile stamens becoming staminodes. Carpels numerous or few, rarely 1, free, rarely connate to various degrees ; ovary with 1 to many ovules. Fruit follicles or achenes, rarely capsules or berries . Seeds small, with abundant endosperm and minute embryo.

About 60 genera and 2500 species: worldwide, but richly represented in N temperate regions , particularly in E Asia; 38 genera (four endemic) and 921 species (604 endemic) in China.[1]

Genus Anemone

Herbs, perennial , from rhizomes, caudices, or tubers. Leaves basal, simple or compound , petiolate . Leaf blade lobed or parted or undivided, reniform to obtriangular or lanceolate, margins entire or variously toothed . Inflorescences terminal , 2-9-flowered cymes or umbels, or flowers solitary, to 60 cm; involucres present, often with primary involucres subtending inflorescences, and secondary and tertiary involucres subtending inflorescence branches or single flowers (primary, secondary, and tertiary involucres appearing to be in tiers ), involucral bracts 2-7(-9), leaflike or sepaloid , distant from or close to flowers. Flowers bisexual , radially symmetric ; sepals not persistent in fruit, 4-20(-27), white, purple, blue, green, yellow, pink, or red, plane , linear to oblong or ovate to obovate , 3.5-40 mm; petals usually absent (present in A. patens ), distinct , plane, obovate to elliptic , 1.5-2 mm; nectary present; stamens 10-200; filaments filiform or somewhat broadened at base ; staminodes absent between stamens and pistils; pistils many, simple; ovule 1 per pistil; style present. Fruits achenes, aggregate, sessile or stalked , ovoid to obovoid , sides not veined; beak (persistent style) present, sometimes rudimentary , terminal, straight or curved , to 40(-50) mm, sometimes plumose . x =7 or 8.

Species ca. 150: nearly worldwide, primarily in cooler temperate and arctic regions.

The taxonomy of Anemone continues to be problematic. Anemone occidentalis and A. patens var. multifida (the first two taxa in this treatment) are frequently placed in the genus Pulsatilla Miller on the basis of the long plumose achene beaks, and A. acutiloba and A. americana (the last two taxa in this treatment) in the genus Hepatica Miller, primarily on the basis of the involucre immediately subtending the flower and the lobed, persistent leaves. Recent phylogenetic analyses of Anemone in the broad sense, however, indicate that both Pulsatilla and Hepatica should be subsumed within Anemone. While traditional morphologic characters are useful in distinguishing between Pulsatilla and Hepatica species, respectively, many other morphologic and molecular attributes are shared with Anemone, strongly suggesting that these genera should be united (S. B . Hoot et al. 1994). In addition, a number of genera that have been recognized primarily on a cytotaxonomic basis (e.g. , Anemonastrum, Anemonidium, Anemonoides, and Jurtsevia ) are reduced to synonymy here. Some North American species of Anemone are closely related to plants in Europe, Asia, and South America and continue to be recognized at different ranks . For example, Anemone patens Linnaeus var. multifida (a species included in this treatment) was called Pulsatilla multifida (Pritzel) Juzepczuk for the former Soviet Union by S. V. Juzepczuk (1970) and Pulsatilla patens (Linnaeus) Miller var. multifida (Pritzel) Li S.H. & Huang Y. H. for China by Wang W.-T. (1980). Moreover, interspecific hybridization among some sympatric or nearly sympatric North American species also contributes to the confusion (see N. L. Britton 1891; C. L. Hitchcock et al. 1955-1969, vol. 2; R. S. Mitchell and J. K . Dean 1982). Additional analyses (e.g., G. Boraiah and M. Heimburger 1964; M. Heimburger 1959; C. Joseph and M. Heimburger 1966; and C. S. Keener et al. 1995) may prove to be helpful in resolving the taxonomy within this morphologically diverse genus.

Protoanemonin, an irritating acrid oil , is an enzymatic breakdown product of the glycoside ranunculin and is found in many species of Anemone. While protoanemonin can cause severe topical and gastrointestinal irritation, it is unstable and changes into harmless anemonin when plants are dried (N. J. Turner and A. F. Szczawinski 1991).

A caudex , as the term is used here, is the "woody," perennating base of an aerial shoot (inflorescences and basal leaves ). The word tuber refers to a swollen, more or less vertical underground stem. The aerial shoots arise from the apex of either of those persistent structures. Rhizome, as the term is used here, refers to an underground, usually horizontal stem (more or less vertical in Anemone piperi ), that is nearly uniform in diameter (about 1-4 mm diam., depending on the species) along its length . Aerial shoots arise directly from nodes at or near the apex of the rhizome.

Many species of Anemone have only one type of underground stem. Some species, however, have both rhizomes and caudices. In such cases the aerial shoots arise from the apex of a caudex attached to the rhizome. Some other species sometimes have both tubers and rhizomes. In those, one or more horizontal rhizomes arise near the apex of the tuber; the aerial shoots arise from the apex of the tuber.

Proportions given in the key for the middle lobes of basal leaves are calculated as follows: measure length of lobe from apex to a line connecting bases of sinuses; and measure total length of blade from leaf apex to summit of petiole .[2]

Taxonomy

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Domain: Eukaryota () - Whittaker & Margulis,1978 - eukaryotes
- Kingdom: Plantae () - Haeckel, 1866 - Plants
  - Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae () - Cavalier-Smith, 1981
    - Phylum: Tracheophyta () - Sinnott, 1935 ex Cavalier-Smith, 1998 - Vascular Plants
      - Subphylum: Euphyllophytina ()
        Infraphylum: Radiatopses () - Kenrick & Crane, 1997
        Class: Spermatopsida () - Brongniart, 1843
        Subclass: Ranunculidae () - Takhtajan Ex Reveal, 1992
        Superorder: Ranunculanae () - Takhtajan Ex Reveal, 1992
        Order: Ranunculales () - Dumortier, 1829
        Family: Ranunculaceae () - Adans., 1763, nom. cons. - boutons d'or, buttercups
        Subfamily: Ranunculoideae ()
        Tribe: Anemoneae ()
        Genus: Anemone () - C. Linnaeus, 1753 - Windflower [etymology not clear: probably Greek anemos, wind; possibly from Naaman, Semitic name for Adonis, whose blood, according to myth, produced Anemone coronaria ]
        Specific epithet: obtusiloba
        Botanical name: - Anemone obtusiloba alba

Notes

A tentatively accepted name in the RHS Horticultural Database.

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Anemone

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 164 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus. Here are just 100 of them:

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Notes

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Contributors

Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 10, 2012.

Identifiers

Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 1834454

Footnotes

Wencai Wang, Dezhi Fu, Liang-Qian Li, Bruce Bartholomew, Anthony R. Brach, Bryan E. Dutton, Michael G. Gilbert, Yuichi Kadota, Orbélia R. Robinson, Michio Tamura, Michael J. Warnock, Guanghua Zhu & Svetlana N. Ziman "Ranunculaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 6 Page 133. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Bryan E. Dutton, Carl S. Keener & Bruce A. Ford "Anemone". in Flora of North America Vol. 3. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]

Anemone obtusiloba alba

Interesting Facts

Description

Family Ranunculaceae

Genus Anemone

Taxonomy

Notes

Similar Species

Members of the genus Anemone

More Info

Further Reading

Notes

Contributors

Identifiers

Footnotes