Metaporana obtusa

• Overview
• Interesting Facts
• Description
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Overview

Vulnerable

Interesting Facts

Description

Family Convolvulaceae

Herbs or shrubs , usually with twining or climbing stems or erect , often with milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple , entire, dissected , or compound , absent in parasitic species. Flowers solitary, axillary or in cymes, racemes , panicles, umbels, or capitula, bisexual , actinomorphic , usually 5-merous, often showy. Sepals free , often persistent , sometimes enlarged in fruit. Corolla sympetalous , funnelform , campanulate , salverform , or urceolate ; limb subentire or deeply lobed . Stamens alternating with corolla lobes , adnate to corolla; filaments filiform , equal or unequal in length ; anthers introrse , laterally and longitudinally dehiscing; pollen smooth or finely spiny . Disc ringlike or cupular. Ovary superior, mostly 2-carpellate, 1- or 2-loculed, rarely 3- or 4-loculed; ovules basal, erect. Styles 1 or 2, terminal (gynobasic in Dichondra) or very short or absent; stigma entire or 2- (or 3) -lobed, rarely peltate. Fruit a capsule, dehiscing by valves , circumscissile, or irregularly shattering, less often a berry or nutlike. Seeds usually trigonous , smooth or pubescent .

About 58 genera and 1650 species: widely distributed in tropical , subtropical , and temperate regions ; 20 genera and 129 species in China.

Aniseia biflora (Linnaeus) Choisy and A. stenantha (Dunn) Ling, recognized in the Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin., are here treated as Ipomoea biflora and I. fimbriosepala, respectively, because both have pantoporate and spinulose pollen. Strictly speaking, Aniseia is a neotropical genus of about five species, of which A. martinicensis (Jacquin) Choisy is widely naturalized as a common weed in rice paddies in Thailand and other southeast Asian countries. It will probably be found in S China eventually.

The family is important in China for food plants (Ipomoea batatas (Linnaeus) Lamarck and I. aquatica Forsskål), several ornamentals (Ipomoea), several medicinal plants (Erycibe, Ipomoea, Cuscuta, Merremia, Dichondra, Evolvulus), and numerous noxious weeds (Cuscuta, Calystegia, Convolvulus) .

Pollen aperture type and surface ornamentation are important characters in the classification of Convolvulaceae at the generic level and above. The most critical feature of the pollen is whether the grain surface is spiny or not. This distinction separates the eight tribes recognized by Austin (Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 60: 306-412. 1973) into two rather cohesive groups. A low magnification (20 ) is adequate for discerning the presence or absence of minute spines on the surface.

For the successful identification of Convolvulaceae, both flowering and fruiting material should be collected. The first key to genera requires adequate fertile material with both flowers and fruit, and requires use of a pollen character. The second key may be used as an aid to identification where material is lacking flowers or fruit, but in some instances it is still partially dependent upon having both flowers and fruit.[1]

Habitat

Biome: Terrestrial [2].

Ecology: Dominant in the drought-deciduous woodland which follow the wadis in the Zahr basin (such as Wadi Meyhah); also rare in the western part of the Noged Escarpment . Altitude of 100–500 m .

Restricted to the small valleys which cross the western inland plains and in gullies and ravines in the western plateau . This is the first shrub in the west to comes into leaf after rain and last to die back with the onset of dry conditions. An unusually arborescent member of Convolvulaceae. [2].

List of Habitats :

•     1     Forest   
  
•     1.5     Forest - Subtropical/Tropical Dry   
[more info]

Taxonomy

Notes

A tentatively accepted name in the RHS Horticultural Database.

Synonym = Porana obtusa Balf.f.[2].

Similar Species

Members of the genus Metaporana

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More Info

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Further Reading

• IUCN. 2004. 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. www.iucnredlist.org. Downloaded on 23 November 2004.
• Miller, A.G. 1992. List of Socotran endemics with conservation status. Revised November 1991 (unpublished).
• Miller, A.G. 1997. Completed data collection forms and comments concerning the threatened trees of Socotra and Yemen.
• Oldfield, S., Lusty, C. and MacKinven, A. (compilers). 1998. The World List of Threatened Trees. World Conservation Press, Cambridge, UK.
• Fang Rhui-cheng & Huang Shu-hua in Wu Cheng-yih, ed. 1979. Convolvulaceae. Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 64(1): 1-153.

Notes

Contributors

• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 30, 2012.
• Miller.A. 2004. Metaporana obtusa. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloadedon 02February2012.

Identifiers

• Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 5986921
• Globally Unique Identifier: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:947761-1
• IUCN ID: 223075
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 1021731

Footnotes

1. Ruizheng Fang & George Staples "Convolvulaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 16 Page 271. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
2. Miller.A. 2004. Metaporana obtusa. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 02 February 2012. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.