Burmannia
championii Thwaites (Dioscoreales: Burmanniaceae), a new
addition to the flora of Karnataka
Divakar K. Mesta 1,
Harsha V. Hegde 2, Vinayak Upadhya 3 & Sanjiva D.
Kholkute 4
1 Smt.
Parvatibai Chowgule College of Arts and Science, Gogol-Margao, Goa 403604,
India
2,3,4 Regional
Medical Research Centre (Indian Council of Medical Research), Nehru Nagar,
Belgaum, Karnataka 590010, India
Email: 1 divakarmesta@rediffmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 harshavh@rediffmail.com, 3 sirsivinayak@yahoo.com,4 sankhol@yahoo.com
Date
of publication (online): 26 January 2011
Date
of publication (print): 26 January 2011
ISSN
0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: K. Gopalakrishna Bhat
Manuscript
details:
Ms # o2495
Received 29
June 2010
Final received
22 November 2010
Finally
accepted 23 December 2010
Citation: Mesta, D.K., H.V. Hegde, V.
Upadhya & S.D. Kholkute (2011). Burmannia
championii Thwaites (Dioscoreales: Burmanniaceae), a new
addition to the flora of Karnataka. Journal
of Threatened Taxa 3(1):
1465-1468.
Copyright: © Divakar K. Mesta, Harsha V. Hegde, Vinayak
Upadhya & Sanjiva D. Kholkute 2011. Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this
article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by
providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgements: Authors are thankful to National Medicinal Plant
Board for the financial assistance, Joint Director, Botanical Survey of India,
Southern Circle, Coimbatore (MH) for permission to
compare the specimen. DKM is thankful to the Principal, Smt. Parvatibai
Chowgule College, Margoa for the support.
Burmannia
championii Thwaites
is a small, white, filamentous, saprophytic herb belonging to the family
Burmanniaceae. This has been
recorded in an evergreen forest patch at Kathalekan near Jog Falls of Uttara
Kannada (North Canara) District and at Karani of Shimoga District. Both the localities are in the central
Western Ghats region in Karnataka. The voucher specimen of the collection has been deposited at the herbarium
of Regional Medical Research Centre (ICMR), Belgaum (RMRC 00506) (Image
1). The identification has been
confirmed by comparing with the authentic specimens housed at Madras Herbarium
(MH), Botanical Survey of India, Southern Circle, Coimbatore.
The
family Burmanniaceae is represented by 17 genera and 125 species (Hajra
1988). They are distributed in the
tropics and sub tropics of both hemispheres. In India, it is represented by two genera (Burmannia and Haplothismia) and 10 species. The genus Burmannia comprises about 57 species (Shu 2010)
distributed in tropics of both hemispheres, southern United States, southern
Brazil, Bolivia, Mozambique, southern China, Southeast Asia, Japan and southern
Australia. Nine species of Burmannia have been reported from India, of
which three are endemic.
B.championii was reported earlier from Sri Lanka, Malayan peninsula,
southern China and Japan (Hajra 1988). It was reported from Taiwan recently by Hsieh &
Ohashi (2000). Trimen &
Hooker (1984) mentioned this plant as endemic to Sri Lanka and reported it to
be rare in moist low lands. In
India, B.
championii is
recorded only from Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Balakrishnan 1976) and Kerala
(Joseph et al. 1980). This report
of the plant from Karnataka is after a gap of 30 years since its report from
Kerala. The report gains
importance as Balakrishnan et al. (1983) reported B. championii to be endangered in the Indian
subcontinent.
The
plant was observed in September 2008, as undergrowth in a swampy relic forest
called Myristica
swamp in
Kathalekan (Uttara Kannada District) with a population of several
individuals. It was growing
amongst decaying litter and wet soil in the swamp and adjoining areas. The plant appeared as a small herb with
terminal capitate inflorescence. The same plant was observed during the same field visit at Karani area
of Shimoga District in an evergreen forest patch dominated by the trees of Poeciloneuron indicum Bedd. The detailed description of the plant with
photographs (Images 2-5) are provided to enable its easy identification.
Burmannia
championiiThw.
Enum.
Pl. Zeyl. 325. 1864; Hook. f.,
Fl. Brit. India 5: 666.1890; Jonker I.c.38; Balakrishnan in Bull. Bot. Surv. India. 18(1-4): 230-231. 1976; Joseph,
Ansari et Mohanan in Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 76:
552-553. 1980.
Specimens examined: 19.ix.2008, Kathalekan, Uttara Kannada
District, Karnataka, India, coll. Divakar K. Mesta, Harsha V. Hegde and Vinayak
Upadhya, 506 (RMRC); 14.x.1979, Madampatty forest, Palghat District, Kerala,
India, coll. N.C. Nair, 126012 (MH).
It
is a saprophytic herb with underground tuber of about 1cm long and 0.6cm
diameter. Stem 7-15 cm high and
1mm in diameter, simple, slender, white. Scales 2-4 mm long, lanciolate,
spirally arranged; basal scales shorter. Bracts 3-4 mm long, acute. Inflorescence terminal, capitate or sub-capitate,2-7-flowered. Flowers bisexual, tubular, wingless; up to 1.2cm long,
white. Outer perianth lobe up to
3mm, erect, acute; inner perianth lobe 1.5mm long, minutely pubescent. Anthers sessile, halfway down the tube. Ovary to 3mm, oblong-ovoid; style
thick, filiform; stigma 3-lobed, funnel shaped.
Flowering and fruiting: July-September, in the present
localities (Kathalekan and Karani) these plants were in flower during
September.
The family Burmanniaceae in general and B. championii in particular, areless studied as evidenced by the scanty literature. Hsieh & Ohashi (2000) worked on SEM of the pollens from
the Taiwan specimen. In the
similar work, Chakrapani & Raj (1971) reported the pollen morphology of 19
species of Burmannia, including B. championii. The phylogeny and evolution of Burmanniaceae was
reported by Merckx et al. (2006) based on nuclear and mitochondrial data. However, they did not considered B. championii in their study. There are no reports either on chemical
constituents or medicinal uses of B. championii. Even though, B. coelestis is reported to be
used medicinally by Santals in India (Hajra 1988); details are not
available. Hence avenues are open
to work further on this species.
In
addition to the earlier report on distribution of the plant in India, our
report gives its further extension to the north of Kerala, forming a new
addition to the flora of Karnataka. It also throws light on possible likelihood of its occurrence elsewhere
in the evergreen forests of Western Ghats.
Note: During late monsoon, several individuals of B. championii shoot up from the subterranean tubers,
especially in the wet, littered forest floor. The note on the MH herbarium sheet also indicates it as ‘most
common’. Even though it is a
common herb in the ground layer of evergreen forests, it may have lost the
attention of botanists due to its appearance like fungal fruiting body and its
short life span.
References
Balakrishnan,
N.P. (1976). Burmannia championii Thw. An addition to
the flora of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Bulletin of Botanical Survey of
India 18(1-4):
230-231.
Balakrishnan, N.P. & M.K.V.
Rao (1983). The
Dwindling Plant Species of Andaman and Nicobar Isalnds, pp. 186-201. In: Jain, S.K. & R.R. Rao (eds.). An
Assessment of Threatened Plants of India. Botanical Survey of
India, Howrah.
Chakrapani, P. & B. Raj
(1971).Pollen Morphological Studies in the Burmanniaceae. Grana 11(3): 164-179.
Hajra,
P.K. (1988).Burmaniaceae, p. 9. In: Nayar, M.P., K. Thothathri & M. Sanjappa (eds.). Fascicles
of Flora of India, Fascicle 19. Botanical Survey of
India, Kolkata.
Hooker,
J.D. (1890). The
Flora of British India,
Vol. 5. L. Reeve and Co., London, 666pp.
Hsieh, T.H. & H. Ohashi
(2000). A new record of Burmannia
championii Thwaites (Burmanniaceae) in Taiwan. Taiwania 45 (4): 346-350.
Joseph,
J., R. Ansari & C.N. Mohanan (1980). Burmannia championii Thw. An addition to the flora of south
India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 76: 552-553.
Merckx,
V., P. Schols, H.M. Van De Kamer, P. Maas,
S. Huysmans & E. Smets (2006). Phylogeny andevolution of Burmanniaceae (Dioscoreales) based on nuclear and mitochondrial
data. American
Journal of Botany93(11): 1684-1698.
Shu,
S.Y.Z. (2010). Burmanniaceae in Flora of China 23: 121-123. http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/PDF/PDF23/Burmannia.pdf downloaded on 13 January 2011.
Trimen, H. & J.D. Hooker
(1984). A
Handbook to The Flora of Ceylon. Bishan Singh
Mahendra Pal Singh, Dehra Dun, 131pp.