Rhizanthes Zippelii

''Rhizanthes zippelii'' is a species of parasitic flowering plant without leaves, stems, roots, or photosynthetic tissue. Its flowers bud out of the roots of the ''Tetrastigma'' vine. It is found in the tropical rainforests of Java. The flowers are reddish-brown, with long hanging tips, and are from 12 to 29 cm across.

Taxonomy

''Rhizanthes zippelii'' was first described as ''Brugmansia zippelii'' by Carl Ludwig Blume in Java in 1828, placed in a monotypic genus. A second species, ''B. lowii'', followed, described by Odoardo Beccari in 1868. ''B. bakhuizenii'' was the third species, named by Emil Johann Lambert Heinricher after his 1903/04 trip to the island for a taxon with a different flower colour on Java. Bénédict Pierre Georges Hochreutiner recombined the taxon in 1930 to another genus, ''Mycetanthe'', but then a few years later in 1934 Édouard Spach moved the species to another genus, ''Rhizanthes'', as it is still classified in today.

In the 1963 (English version of the) ''Flora of Java'' C. A. Backer and R. C. Bakhuizen van den Brink reduced ''B. bakhuizenii'' to a synonym of ''Rh. zippelii''. They recognised two forms -somewhat confusingly, perhaps over-modestly, leaving them nameless. The original form described by Blume had only been seen a handful of times; the form with which ''bakhuizenii'' was synonymised was found in the most number of places. They also proposed synonymising the enigmatic taxa described by Robert Brown in 1821, ''Rafflesia horsfieldii'', to this last form. In 1988 Willem Meijer and J. F. Veldkamp explained that the difference in flower colour was the result of the normal change in flower colour that the occurred during anthesis -the whitish flower of the Blume form was simply a flower on its first day of opening, and thus found it unjustified to recognise the two forms.

The difference between the two species ''Rh. zippelii'' and ''Rh. lowii'' had always been unclear -the plants had only been collected a limited number of times, and ''Rh. lowii'' had been synonymised with the older species by Hooker in 1873, but this had been generally ignored by most people. In the 1930s the difference between the two species was thought to be the hairiness of the inside of the perigone tube - ''Rh. lowii'' being much smoother and less hairy. Based on this character, ''Rh. zippelii'' was collected for the first time in western Borneo in 1935.

In order to find a morphological basis for separating the taxa Meijer and Veldkamp used the 'ramenta' - minute stalked outgrowths found on the inside of the perigone tube, having found these useful in differentiating the related ''Rafflesia''. Based on this, the Thai-Malayan population was reclassified from ''Rh. lowii'' to ''Rh. zippelii'' in 1988, but in 1997 Meijer reassessed them as ''Rh. lowii'' again, based on the same character. Bänziger, on the other hand, had been under the impression that ''Rh. zippelii'' had a white flower colour (as based on Blume's original account), and ''Rh. lowii'' brown, but after reading Meijer's account of the change in flower colour, Bänziger followed Hooker in synonymising the taxa in 1995. As had happened to Hooker, he was largely ignored.

Bänziger and Hansen were unsure of how applicable basing the species on the form of the ramenta alone was, finding the characters were inconsistent and did not clearly separate all the specimens into geographically distinct groups -for example, Blume's type specimen of ''Rh. zippelii'' lacked ramenta all together, and did specimens throughout the range, thus they resolved to use a larger group of morphological traits and the larger number of specimens which had been collected since 1988 to clear this up. They found that the ramenta were indeed mixed between specimens, but that the specimens could roughly be split into four 'groups', although some of these groups were only based on a handful of specimens. A number of characteristics were ambiguous, mixed or had ranges which overlapped with other groups, making them inadequate for differentiating taxa. Notwithstanding this, however, they decided to recognised their groups at a species level anyway, reasoning that regardless the phylogeny, it would be potentially more advantageous for non-scientific reasons to recognise them as four rare endemics.

Etymology

Blume commemorated the horticulturist and plant collector Alexander Zippelius with the specific epithet (an eponym), who partially assumed his duties at the Bogor Botanical Gardens in Java when Blume departed for the Low Countries to write a proper flora of the region. Zippelius collected the first specimens of this new species of plant on Mount Salak, not far from Bogor. Zippelius was an important collector for Blume, he died from disease in Timor during a botanical expedition to the Moluccas, western New Guinea and other islands of the region.

The generic epithet derives from the compound of the Ancient Greek words ῥίζα (pronounced ''rhíza''), meaning 'root', with the word ἄνθος ( ''anthos'') meaning 'flower'.

Distribution

Due to the taxonomic changes described above the distribution of ''Rhizanthes zippelii'' has changed with the change of perspectives. As it is now defined by Bänzinger and Hansen, ''Rh. zippelii'' is an endemic of Java. ''Rh. zippelii'' was collected for the first time in western Borneo in 1935, but the identification was based on characters which are now disregarded.

Writing in 1988, Meijer mentioned that the plant had not been seen on Java since before the Second World War. He mentions that botanists were likely the main reason for the decline of the species, at least at Mount Salak, the most well-known collecting locality near Bogor

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