Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Bracted lousewort

(Pedicularis bracteosa)

galery
en

Description

The winged pedicolare (scientific name Pedicularis recutita L.,1753) is a parasitic plant belonging to the Orobanchaceae family. These plants are 20 to 50 cm tall. The biological form is scapose hemicryptophyte (H scap), i.e. in general they are herbaceous plants, with a perennial biological cycle, with wintering buds at ground level and protected by litter or snow and have an erect floral axis often devoid of leaves. They are also parasitic plants: the roots show specific organs to feed on the sap of other plants. The roots, large and fleshy (taproot), are distributed radially trying to reach the roots of other plants to suck their sap. The leaves are divided into basal and cauline. The basal ones have a lanceolate outline with pinnatosette shapes with deeply toothed segments; the surface is subglabrous. Those cauline, available alternately, are similar but progressively reduced. Basal leaf size: 1 cm wide; length 8 - 10 cm. The inflorescences are dense spikes with sub sessile flowers. At the base of the flowers there are some leaf bracts (similar to the upper leaves). The flowers are hermaphrodites, zygomorphs (of the bilabiate type), tetramers, that is, with four verticils (halice - corolla - androecium - gynoecium) and pentamers (the corolla and the chalice have 5 parts). Flower length: 12-15 mm. The fruit is an ovoid-lanceolate bivalve loculicidal capsule (when ripe it is twice as long as the calyx). The seeds are few and angular in shape. Geoelement: the chorological type (area of

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum:
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order:Lamiales
Family:Orobanchaceae
Genus:Pedicularis
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