Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Brazilian giant-rhubarb

(Gunnera manicata)

galery
en

Description

Gunnera manicata, known as Brazilian giant-rhubarb or giant rhubarb, is a species of flowering plant in the family Gunneraceae from Brazil. It is a large, clump-forming herbaceous perennial growing to 2.5 m (8 ft) tall by 4 m (13 ft) or more. The leaves of G. manicata grow to an impressive size. Leaves with diameters well in excess of 120 cm (4 ft) are commonplace, with a spread of 3 m × 3 m (10 ft × 10 ft) on a mature plant. The underside of the leaf and the whole stalk have spikes on them. In early summer it bears tiny red-green flowers in conical branched panicles, followed by small, spherical fruit. However, it is primarily cultivated for its massive leaves. This plant grows best in damp conditions such as near garden ponds, but dislikes winter cold and wet. Despite the common name "giant rhubarb", this plant is not closely related to true rhubarb. It was named after a Norwegian bishop and naturalist Johan Ernst Gunnerus, who also named and published a description about the basking shark. It is native to the Serra do Mar mountains of Brazil, where it is used in traditional medicine for sexually transmitted diseases. Gunnera is the sole genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Gunneraceae, which contains 63 species. Some species have extremely large leaves. Species in the genus are variously native to Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Papuasia, Hawaii, insular Southeast Asia, Africa, and Madagascar. The stalks of many species are edible. The 40–50 species vary enormously in leaf size. The giant rhubarb, or Campos des Loges (Gunnera manicata), native to the Serra do Mar mountains of southeastern Brazil, is perhaps the largest species, with reniform or sub-reniform leaves typically 1.5 to 2.0 meters (4 ft 11 in to 6 ft 7 in) long, not including the thick, succulent petiole which may be up to 2.5 meters (8 feet 2 inches) in length. The width of the leaf blade is typically 2.5 meters (8 feet 2 inches), but on two occasions cultivated specimens (in Dorset, England in 2011 and at Narrowwater, Ulster, Ireland in 1903) produced leaves fully 3.3 meters (10 feet 10 inches) in width. The seeds germinate best in very moist, but not wet, conditions and temperatures of 22–29 °C.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order:Gunnerales
Family:Gunneraceae
Genus:Gunnera
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