Pitcher is a famous tropical insectivorous plant, its origin is mainly in tropical Asia. Pitcher has a unique nutrient absorption organ - insect catching cage, which is cylindrical in shape, slightly expanded in the lower half, and has a cover on the cage mouth. Because the shape is like a pigsty, it is called pitcher grass.
Nepenthes is a kind of beautiful and peculiar insectivorous plant. It is a perennial herb or semi lignified vine shrub of nepenthaceae, Nepenthes. Leaves alternate, long elliptic, entire, midvein elongated into tendrils, with a leaf cage at the end. The leaf cage is like a bottle, the edge of the bottle mouth is thick, and there is a small cap on it. When it grows, the cap opens and cannot be closed again. Cage color is mainly green, with brown or red spots or stripes, and the whole cage is red, brown or even purple, black varieties. The size of leaf cage varies with varieties. There are two types of propagation: sexual propagation and asexual propagation. The common propagation methods of pitcher are cutting, layering and sowing. The planting of pitcher can be cultivated in greenhouse. The lowland pitchers with low planting difficulty include Indian Pitcher (n. khasiana), Khmer Pitcher (n. thorelii), exotic Pitcher (N. mirabilis), etc., while the upland pitcher has n. truncatea, N. alata, N. veitchii, etc. How to deal with the withered part of the pitcher grass? Cut off the withered part, or the withered part will extend downward. Remember to spray more water (not water). Humidity is very important to ensure that there is water in the cage as much as possible. Why do pitcher plants eat insects? Pitcher plants originally live in extremely bad environment, and can only survive by eating insects. This behavior gradually evolved into its habits. So it eats worms. The secret of larva catching insects most of them have a large number of nectaries on the lower surface of the cage cover, which secrete nectar to attract insects for food. However, these nectar have anesthetic effects, which can paralyze insects and fall into cages. In addition, under the cover of Larch's pitcher, white mass will be secreted to lure tree shrews to eat. According to the Convention on international trade in endangered species of Wild Fauna and flora signed by each Contracting Party, the protection status of pitcher is listed in Appendix II. Although pitcher is not an endangered species, its trade may accelerate its extinction. Therefore, the Convention stipulates that the trade of pitcher grass must obtain the Convention license first.
The original plant of leigonghu in Chinese herbal medicine is the exotic pitcher in the genus pitcher.
Form of Medicine: dry stem and leaf, mainly the sacculus at the tip of the leaf. The leaves are paper-based, mostly broken; oblong or lanceolate; the upper part is grayish brown and purple colored, the veins are clear, and the lower part is dark brown: the main veins protrude and grow into tendrils, which are about the same length as the leaves, and the tendrils are connected with a saclike rest at the apex. Most of the sacs are flattened, with a cap attached to the top; the outer surface is brown to brown yellow, and the inner surface is reddish brown to yellow brown, smooth and densely covered with glandular spots; at the bottom of the sacs, there are often fragments of dead insects.
Collection: harvest in autumn, cut and dry.
Origin: mostly in sunny and humid areas. It is distributed in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan.
Chemical composition: the whole grass contains flavonoid glycosides, phenols, amino acids, sugars and anthraquinone glycosides.
Sexual taste: sweet, cool.
① "Luchuan Materia Medica": "cold nature, astringent taste."
② "Guangdong traditional Chinese medicine" II: "light, flat."
③ "Common Chinese herbal medicine manual" of Guangzhou Army: "sweet and light, cool."
Function indications: clear lung, moisten dryness, move water, detoxify. For the treatment of dry cough, pertussis, jaundice, stomachache, dysentery, edema, carbuncle, insect bite.
① "Luchuan Materia Medica": "antiphlogistic, detoxification, water. For edema, dysentery, sore, carbuncle, ulcer, redness and swelling, insect bites, and falls. "
② "Guangdong traditional Chinese medicine" II: "clearing the dry fire in the lung and treating hemoptysis."
③ "Manual of common Chinese herbal medicines" of Guangzhou Army: "clearing away heat and dampness, resolving phlegm and relieving cough. For jaundice hepatitis, stomach and duodenal ulcer pain, urinary calculus, hypertension, cold and cough, pertussis. "
Usage and dosage: decoction, 0.5-1 Liang (fresh 1-2 Liang). External use: mash and apply. The scientific name comes from the scientific name of Nepenthes, which was first found in the work of Carolus Linnaeus in 1737, "Clifford garden". It comes from a passage in Homer's Odyssey. Among them, the queen of Egypt gave Helen a bottle of medicine named "Nepenthes pharmakon". In Greek mythology, "Nepenthe" is a kind of medicine that can make people forget all the sorrows. Linnaeus said: "if this is not Helen's" forgetful water ", then it will be the botanist's. If you find this wonderful plant after a long journey, you will be amazed, all the unhappiness will be forgotten, and wonder how nature can be so magical. "
The pitcher plant described by Linnaeus is n. distilatoria, which comes from Sri Lanka. In 1753, in Linnaeus' flora, the name of pitcher was officially published. Since then, "Nepenthes" has become the official name of the genus Nepenthes. N. distilatoria is also a model species of pitcher.
The earliest record of pitcher plant history can be traced back to the 17th century. In 1658, Etienne de flacourt, the French colonial governor, described pitcher for the first time in his pioneering work the history of Madagascar. He wrote: "this plant is about 3 feet tall, with leaves about 7 inches long. At the end of the leaves, there is a covered vase like structure similar to fruits or flowers. These cages are yellow and red. The yellow ones are bigger. People in this country don't pick these cages. Because they think it won't rain in a few days if someone picks them. And the other French and I picked the cages, and they did. It didn't rain. After the rain, the cages will be filled with rain
Then fragu named it "amramatico" in the name of local custom. A century later, this species was officially named n. madagascariensis. A second plant, n. distilatoria, was found in Sri Lanka. In 1677, Barcelona briefly described a plant called Miranda Herba. Three years later, Dutch businessman Jacob blarney named it "Bandura zingalensium" in the name of local customs. Later, "Bandura" became the most commonly used name for pitcher, until Linnaeus founded Nepenthes in 1737. In 1683, Swedish doctor h. n. green once again described dropwise Pitcher (n. distilatoria). Greene called it "the strange water drop" or "the magical distillation plant". This is the first time someone has described pitcher clearly. Three years later, in 1686, John Ray, a British naturalist, quoted green as saying: "due to the sunlight, the water vapor on the ground rises and condenses on the plants, and the water drops flow into the cage with the stems and leaves. (translated from the French book "Nepenthes in Borneo") "(this view is not correct, it is an early scholar's guess about the source of the liquid in the cage)
One of the earliest illustrations of pitcher appeared in Leonard plukenet's 1696 Encyclopedia of Botany. Among them, n. distilatoria was named "utricaria vegetabilis zeylanensium". At about the same time, the German botanist Georg Eberhard Rumphius discovered two new species of pitcher in the Malay islands. Longvance named one of them "lagerstroegrass" and the other "white lagerstroegrass". These two kinds of pitchers are n. mirabilis and N. maxima. His greatest contribution in his life was to build the plant catalogue of Ambon island and collect 6 collections of Ambon plant specimens. But they were not published until after his death. Rufus had a lot of bad luck in his life, and lost his hand in publishing the descriptions of pitcher plants for many times. In 1670, Rufus completed only part of the manuscript. With the help of his staff and artists, his thesis was nearly finished in 1687. But a fire destroyed most of the illustrations. In 1690, he and his assistant finished the paper again. Unfortunately, two years later, the Dutch ship carrying his manuscript was hit by a French ship and sank. Fortunately, a copy was kept at governor Johannes camphuijs so that their work could be restarted. In 1696, Rufus finally came to Holland with his works. But even so, his work has not been published for various reasons. His work was not published until 1741, the 39th year after his death. But by this time, Linnaeus had published his works and named the genus Nepenthes.
There is an illustration of n. distilatoria in the work of Johannes burmann in 1737. Barman called it "Bandura zeylanica.".
The next description of pitcher plant is that in 1790, the Portuguese priest Joao de Loureiro described a plant from Vietnam named "phylamphora mirabilis", which means "strange jar like plant". Although lorero lived in Vietnam for 35 years, according to his description, he did not see the living pitcher grass. In his book, he wrote: "the At the end of the leaf is a long cage vine, there will be several circles in the middle, and the cage hanging below is oval or pot belly. The edge of the cage mouth is a circle of smooth lips, and above the lip is a cage cover of the same size. The cover can be opened and closed at will to receive and store rainwater Translated from the French book "Nepenthes in Borneo"
It seems that the false statement that the cage cover of pitcher can be opened and closed freely may come from lorero's imagination.
The plant was eventually placed in the genus pitcher by George Claridge druce in 1916.
In 1797, lorero's false description that the cage cover of pitcher grass can be opened and closed freely was reused by Jean Louis Marie poiret. Two of the four kinds of pitchers described by Pollet are the Madagascar Pitcher (N. madagascariensis) and the dropwise Pitcher (n. distilatoria) known at that time. But the other two kinds of Nepenthes do not appear in India, but they are still called "Nepenthes of India". In Jean Baptiste Lamarck's Encyclopedia of plant taxonomy (Encyclopedia é die m é thodique Botanique), Pollet wrote: "the cage is hollow, often filled with slippery, clear liquid.