Euryale (plant)
Genus of aquatic plants
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Euryale is a genus of flowering plants of the family Nymphaeaceae.[3]
| Euryale Temporal range: [1] | |
|---|---|
| |
| Flowering Euryale ferox cultivated at the Kodai Hasu no Sato park in Gyoda City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Order: | Nymphaeales |
| Family: | Nymphaeaceae |
| Genus: | Euryale Salisb. |
| Type species | |
| Euryale ferox Salisb. ex K.D. Koenig & Sims[2] | |
| Species | |
|
see here | |
| Synonyms[3] | |
| |
Description
Vegetative characteristics
Euryale is an annual or perennial, rhizomatous, aquatic herb with erect, unbranched rhizomes.[4] The adaxial leaf surface is green, and features prickles at the veins. The abaxial leaf surface is violet and displays prominent, prickly venation.[5] The thin, sharp prickles are 3–11 mm long, and 1–2 mm wide at the base.[6]
Generative characteristics
The pedunculate, 5 cm wide flowers have prickly peduncles and sepals.[7] The flowers have four persistent sepals.[8] The gynoecium consists of 7–16 carpels.[4] The prickly fruit bears 8–20[8] black,[5] arillate,[4] spherical, ovate, obovate, or ellipsoidal[9] 6-10 mm wide seeds[7] with a hard, smooth, wrinkled,[10] gnarled, or irregularly ridged testa.[9]
Taxonomy
Publication
It was published by Richard Anthony Salisbury in 1805.[3] with Euryale ferox Salisb. ex K.D. Koenig & Sims as the type species.[2]
Species
It has one extant species:[3]
- Euryale ferox Salisb.
And several fossil species:
- †Euryale akashiensis Miki[11]
- †Euryale bielorussica Wieliczk.[12]
- †Euryale carpatica Szafer[13]
- †Euryale europaea C. A. Weber[14]
- †Euryale limburgensis C. & E. In. Reid.[15]
- †Euryale lissa Reid[16]
- †Euryale nodulosa C. & E. M. Reid[17]
- †Euryale spinosa J.B. Simpson[18][19]
- †Euryale sukaczevii Dorof.[9]
- †Euryale tenuicostata Dorof.[9]
- †Euryale ucrainica A.G. Negru[20]
- †Euryale yunnanensis Y. Huang & Z. Zhou[9]
The placement of some of the fossil species is however disputed, as it has been proposed to move several species to the genus †Pseudoeuryale P.I. Dorof.[21]
Evolutionary relationships
Together with the genus Victoria, Euryale may be placed within the genus Nymphaea, rendering it paraphyletic in its current circumscription.[22][1][23][24][25] The lineage of Euryale and Victoria diverged from the lineage of Nymphaea subg. Lotos and Nymphaea subg. Hydrocallis in the Miocene and subsequently the lineages of Euryale and Victoria diverged from each other also in the Miocene.[1]
Cytology
The chromosome count of Euryale ferox is 2n = 58.[26]
Ecology
Distribution
Conservation
Fossil record
Euryale seeds and prickles are well preserved in the fossil record[6] and pollen fossils are known as well.[30] Today, Euryale only occurs in the region spanning from Northern India to the Russian Far East, and extends to temperate East Asia[3] but the fossil record shows it was once also present in central Europe.[31] It is known from the Miocene of Poland, Russia, China, Germany,[9] and the United Kingdom,[19] from the Pliocene of the Netherlands, Poland,[9] Germany,[32][33] and Italy,[34] and lastly, from the Pleistocene of Russia, Germany, Poland, Japan, China,[9] Belgium,[35] and Belarus.[36]