Bergenia crassifolia
Bergenia crassifolia | |
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Bergenia crassifolia, like many of its congeners, was originally believed to be a saxifrage
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Order: | Saxifragales |
Family: | Saxifragaceae |
Genus: | Bergenia |
Species: | B. crassifolia
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Binomial name | |
Bergenia crassifolia | |
Varieties | |
Bergenia crassifolia var. crassifolia
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Synonyms | |
Bergenia cordifolia (Haw.) Sternb.
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Bergenia crassifolia is a species of flowering plant of the genus Bergenia in the family Saxifragaceae. Common names for the species include heart-leaved bergenia,[1][2] heartleaf bergenia, leather bergenia,[2] winter-blooming bergenia,[3] elephant-ears,[1] elephant's ears,[2] Korean elephant-ear,[4] badan, pigsqueak,[3] Siberian tea,[2] and Mongolian tea.
The species epithet crassifolia means "thick-leaved", while the epithet in the
Description
It grows to about 12 inches (30 cm) tall. The leaves are winter hardy in warmer climates and change colour in the range of rust brown to brown-red. The rhizome is creeping, fleshy, thick, reaching several meters in length and 3.5 cm in diameter, with numerous root lobes, highly branched, located near the soil surface, turning into a powerful vertical root. The stem is thick, leafless, glabrous, pink-red, 15-50 cm high.
Leaves are in a basal dense rosette (wintering under the snow), dark green, which redden by autumn, with an almost rounded blade and a membranous sheath remaining up to two to three years. The leaf blade is broadly elliptical or almost rounded, rounded or chordate at the base, obtuse or indistinctly dentate, 3–35 cm long, 2.5–30 cm wide, on wide petioles not exceeding the length of the plate, equipped at the base with membranous vaginal stipules .
Flowers and fruits
Flowers are small, regular, lacking bracts, in apical thick paniculately-corymbiform
The fruit is an ellipsoidal, dry capsule with two diverging lobes opening along the abdominal suture. Seeds are numerous, oblong, smooth, glabrous, faceted, almost black, up to 2 mm long.
The plant blooms in late spring and early summer before the appearance of young leaves. The seeds ripen in mid or late summer.
Cultivation
It is a widely-grown garden plant; cultivars include Bergenia cordifolia 'Purpurea', Bergenia cordifolia 'Winterglut', Bergenia cordifolia 'Senior', and Bergenia crassifolia 'Autumn Red'. It mainly reproduces vegetatively (by segments of rhizomes), but reproduction by seeds is not excluded. As an ornamental plant, it has been known in culture since the middle of the 18th century, it is used for landscaping, in stone gardens, arrays of shrubs and trees. Gardeners bred several forms with flowers of various colors. The plant prefers semi-shady and shady places with moderately dry, fertile soil. Propagated by dividing the bush in the fall.
Uses
Bergenia crassifolia is used as a tea substitute in its native Siberia,
Medicine
The medicinal properties of the plant have long been used in Russian
Chemistry
The plant contains the polyphenols
See also
- List of the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland (dicotyledons)
References
- ^ a b BSBI List 2007 (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
- ^ ISBN 9780881928877p. 121.
- ^ ISBN 9781604696721. p. 88.
- ISBN 978-89-97450-98-5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 May 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2016 – via Korea Forest Service.
- ^ "Bergenia cordifolia 'Rosa Zeiten' elephant's ears 'Rosa Zeiten'". The Royal Horticultural Society. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
- ^ Encyclopedic Dictionary of Medicinal, Essential Oil and Poisonous Plants / Comp. G. S. Ogolevets. -M.: Selkhozgiz, 1951. - S. 30. - 584 p.
- ^ Atlas of medicinal plants of the USSR / Ch. ed. N.V. Tsitsin. -M.: Medgiz, 1962. - S. 60. - 702 p.
- ^ Pop, Carmen; Vlase, Laurian; Tamas, Mircea (2009). "Natural Resources Containing Arbutin. Determination of Arbutin in the Leaves of Bergenia crassifolia (L.) Fritsch. acclimated in Romania". Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-Napoca. 31 (1): 129–132. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011.
- ^ Bergenia on metabolomics.jp
- S2CID 21358343.
External links
- "Bergenia crassifolia". Plants for a Future.
- Bergenia crassifolia in the CalPhotos photo database, University of California, Berkeley