Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

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Sônia Sin Singer Brugiolo, Luciana Valente Borges, Daniel Sales Pimenta et al.
Keywords: Alismataceae, Echinodorus, chapéu de couro.
General Considerations
Echinodorus grandiflorus (Cham. and Schltdl.) Micheli belongs to the family
Alismataceae which gathers aquatic or semi-aquatic herbaceous plants with leaves
submerged, flotation or emergent that can be recognized by the production of latex, basal
placentation and fruits of the type achene.
Each inflorescence stays flowery for approximately 30 days and it produces about 220
flowers, being stood out above the leaves during the whole spring. The flowers are scentless,
actinomorphics, shallow and they possess white corolla with numerous stamens and yellow
pistils, exposed. The anthesis of the flowers happens in the morning and each flower lasts
about eight hours. Their morphologic type allows the access of several insects. The visits of
21 species of bees were verified and of six species of beetles, being the bees the main
pollinators (HAYNES and NIELSEN, 1994, VIEIRA and LIMA, 1997). The aspect of the
leaves and of the inflorescence with flowers in anthesis of E. grandiflorus can be observed in
the illustrations 1 and 2.
Echinodorus spp. has unisexual flowers and cylindrical fruits containing glands among
ribs. E. grandiflorus ssp. grandiflorus holds more than 21 stamens, leaves have pellucid
markings as dots or lines, petioles are at least five times larger than the sepals, and bracts are
larger than the petioles.
Figure 1. Echinodorus grandiflorus: general aspect of leaves.
Photo: PIMENTA, D.S.