Family Light-toothed: a short description

Representatives of a large family of snow-white, and previously Gubotsvetnye, are widespread on Earth - in the temperate latitudes of Europe, the Asian continent, in the tropical and subtropical belts of Central and South America. A special variety of plants of the family are famous for the Mediterranean countries, the mountainous regions of the American continent and the plains of Eurasia, but in the arctic tundra to meet the plant from the labiate is a rare success. We learn more about the characteristics of representatives of this remarkable family.

The most common species and their application

The family Yakovtotkovye, rightfully considered a cosmopolitan vegetable kingdom, unites 221 genus and more than 6 thousand species of plants. Most of them are wild-growing, but representatives of 65 genera are used in decorative gardening and even in industrial production. Many plants of the family are clear essential oils, which have found application in cooking, medicine, food and perfume industries. These are such plants as lemon balm, mint, lavender, oregano, basil, thyme and many other cultures. Some representatives of labial flowers contain coloring substances.

Different sources inform the reader about the different number of species of the family. We will not specify their number, we will only note that there are really a lot of varieties of these plants. But all of them are distinguished by their amazing endurance and excellent adaptability in the proposed, often very harsh conditions. That is why they are common in temperate and tropical latitudes, i.e. in areas with polar different climatic features.

Family Light-toothed: general characteristic

Most of the family members are herbaceous one-, two- or perennials, less often shrubs and semishrubs. Tree forms (trees or lianas) are extremely rare, very few.

The family of clear-headed ones distinguishes the shape of the stems - a pronounced tetrahedral. Well-perceptible faces in some species - slightly rounded, convex or, conversely, concave. Different types of stems are different: erect or creeping, but they are all capable of perfectly rooted in the nodes.

The main root is often preserved throughout the life of the culture or dies off, replaced by subordinate ones. Some representatives of the clearing are formed rhizomes, others - root offspring.

Leaves whole or dissected, in some species - markedly pubescent. Stipules are absent. They are located on the shoots in pairs, opposite each other, each pair of leaves is cross-shaped with respect to the previous and subsequent pairs. The family also differs from the fact that most of its representatives contain essential oils in the leaves. That is why the leaves of the labiate have a strong odor.

Flowers

The original name was labiate-colored because of the external similarity of the flower with the open throat framed by two lips - the upper and lower. In some species, they are divided into several lobes. Flowers are small, five-membered, bisexual, less often along with bisexual flowers are found only in women and very rarely - only males. Coloring them is various: pink, lilac-lilac, yellowish, white or variegated. They are formed in the axils of leaves, ordinary or upper, altered and acquired the shape of bracts. They are single, paired or collected in a sparse inflorescence on short petioles. Each pair of inflorescences touches the subsequent flowers and forms a peculiar false flower ring. With close proximity of such rings in the apical part of the shoot, a beautiful false ear, a brush or a panicle forms. The upper leaves of the shoot gradually decrease in size and take the form of bracts. Characteristic false spikes can be observed at the nettle, mint, cat, melissa, etc.

The structure of the flower

The calyx of the flower is usually five-toothed, campanulate, schistostyleous, and remains with the ripened fruit. By maturity of the fetus, it hardens, and the denticles become prickly. Occasionally, depending on the species, the calyx is bisexual. Corolla is a tube ending in various variations. The abundance of species generates different forms of coronals. For example:

• With a two-lip bend. The upper lip is formed by 2 intergrowing petals, and the lower lip is formed by 3. The middle part of the lower lip is often bifid. Similar corollas of nettles, sage, pikulnik.

• Single-mouthed or incomplete, for example, in Dubnica.

• Cropped (with mint).

The usual number of stamens is 4, they are attached to the corolla tube, 2 of them, as a rule, are longer than the other two. They can hide under the concave upper lip or be exposed to the outside, if the corolla is circumcised or incomplete. In some species only 2 stamens. Some species are provided with a short pestle that extends between the lobes of the 4- or 5-lobed ovary. For pollination, the family Yakovtkovye uses a column, which is a split stigma. It attracts insects, but prevents self-pollination. A clearly expressed owner of such a device is sage. The ripened fruit freely splits into 4 single-seeded nutlets.

It has been established that the clearing with undeveloped corolla and outstanding stamens are prevalent mainly in the east of Europe, in Asia, in northern regions of Africa and America. Probably the same is the distribution of insect pollinators. This is the general characteristic of the family, the clearing, it remains only to find out the peculiarities of the formation of the fruits of these plants.

Fruit

The fruit, the so-called cenobium, immersed in a cup, fractional, often consists of four chambers, evenly developed parts with nut-like seeds. With a possible underdevelopment, the number of chambers can be less - 1 or 3. So, for a clearing fetus is characteristic, they by definition can not have fetal-boxes or berries.

Family Clearcore: representatives

The generosity of nature, which provided the variety of genera and species united in this family, is amazing. We owe it to her that these plants are known all over the world. Here is an incomplete list of genera that make up the family:

• agastash (Hyssop Mexican);

• snake-head;

• Picker;

• Clear cloth;

• lavender;

• motherwort;

• Melissa;

• mint;

• Basil;

• oregano;

• railing.

Finally

All these, as well as representatives of various genera of the family, not mentioned in the publication, are magnificent plants that have served humanity for many centuries. And it does not matter that some of them have long been cultivated and are of great benefit, giving essential oils and rare dyes, while others are distributed exclusively in the wild, adorning with its inconspicuous beauty taiga glades and mountainous slopes.