''Typha minima'', common name dwarf bulrush or miniature cattail or least bulrush, is a perennial

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

plant belonging to the Typhaceae family.Hoppe, David Heinrich. Botanisches Taschenbuch 5: 187. 1794.

Description

The biological form of ''Typha minima'' is '' hemicryptophyte'' '' hydrophyte'', meaning that they are plants with submerged overwintering buds, adapted to living in aquatic environments. Vegetative propagation takes place by means of a short 5 to 8 millimeters thick

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

, that grow up to 20 cm deep in the ground. ''Typha minima'' is the smallest of the cattails. It reaches on average in height,Pignatti S. - Flora d'Italia – Edagricole – 1982. Vol. III, pag. 634 with a maximum of . The stem is erect and simple. The leaves are blue-green, linear, very narrow and not shiny. They reach up to in length and in width. Typhaceae - Typha minima

These plants are

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

, with the male and female reproductive structures borne on the same plant but packed into two separate inflorescences. The minute flowers are unisexual and wind-pollinated. Male ( staminate) flowers are yellowish, while female (

pistillate Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

) flowers are greenish. The female inflorescence is brownish, ellipsoid, long, with a hairy rachis after the fall of the flowers. It is separated from the male inflorescence by a naked stem section, about long. The male inflorescence is thinner and longer, at the top of the vertical stem. The female flowers have one stalked ovary, surrounded by a thick fringe of hair. The three individual stamens of the male flowers are surrounded by just a few hairs. At the end of blooming the male flowers disperse, leaving the top of the stem naked, while the female inflorescence turns into a brown round seed spike. The main flowering period lasts from May through June. Another flowering period may occur in August.

Distribution

This rare plant is widespread in temperate Europe and Asia. The distribution is limited to the rivers of the Alps and the Apennines and to the Balkans, the Danube region and the mountains of central Asia.

Habitat

''Typha minima'' is a light-loving plant and cannot tolerate shade. It grows on periodically flooded banks of slow flowing, cool and pure waters, along lake margins, in marshes, ponds and swamps, at an altitude of above sea level.

References

Plant Finder

External links

Biolib

Schede di botanica
{{Taxonbar, from=Q150095

minima In mathematical analysis, the maxima and minima (the respective plurals of maximum and minimum) of a function, known collectively as extrema (the plural of extremum), are the largest and smallest value of the function, either within a given ran ...

Freshwater plants Flora of Europe Flora of temperate Asia Plants described in 1794