Image of Aristolochia croatica

Description:

Slo.: hrvaki podraec - syn.: Aristolochia lutea Desf.(?), Aristolochia pallida ssp. croatica (?) - Habitat: Light deciduous forest with bushes and small open patches of grassland; almost flat calcareous terrain, half sun, dry place, exposed to direct rain; elevation 25 m (85 feet), average precipitations 1.000 - 1.200 mm/year, average temperature 13 - 15 deg C, submediterranean phytogeographical region. - Substratum: brown soil. - Comment: This species, if correctly determined, is a narrow endemic plant of Adriatic island Pag and its surrounding (Ref.:1) including island Krk (Ref.:6.). Its taxonomical status is not yet agreed upon and thus differently interpreted. Some authors consider this plant as a subspecies of Aristolochia pallida (Domac (2002), Ref.:1), others, for example Tutin et all (eds.) (1993) (Ref.:2) consider the name Aristolochia croatica simply a synonym for Aristolochia lutea. In addition, historically, the name Aristolochia pallid has been used also for Aristolochia lutea (homonym) by different authors. All this makes determination difficult. - My determination is based on information given in Ref.6. (assuming the data base is up-to-date). Plant distribution maps show that Aristolochia lutea Desf. has not been recorded yet on island Krk, while Aristolochia croatica has been recorded several times, however not in this particular MTB square. Also herbarium specimens shown in this data base are very similar to the plans found. Morphologically they differ significantly from Aristolochia pallida Willd. in two traits: they have much shorter limb (it should be about as long as perianth tube with ratio limb/tube between 0.9 and 1.1 according to Ref.:4, while average found was less than one half of this - 0.43, n = 9. Also petioles are too short. With Aristolochia pallida Willd. they should be significantly longer than flower stalks but the plants found have short petioles of approximately the same length as flower stalks.On the other side, Aristolochia lutea should have very short limb, usually not much longer than the diameter of the opening of the perianth tube. Also this doesn't seem the case with the plants photographed. Thus I hope that my determination is correct. - Ref.: (1) R. Domac, Flora Hrvatske, Prirunik za odreivanje bilja (Flora of Croatia, Key of plants), kolska Knjiga, Zgreb, II. izdanje (2002), p 90. (2) T. G. Tutin, V.A. Heywood et all (eds.), Flora Europaea, Cambridge (1993) - www.rbge.org.uk (3) M. Blamey, C. Grey-Wilson, Wild Flowers of the Mediterranean, A & C Black, London (2005), p 37. (4) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije, Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007) (in Slovene), p 120. (5) D. Aeschimann, K. Lauber, D.M. Moser, J.P. Theurillat, Flora Alpina, Vol. 1., Haupt (2004), p 116. (6) Vascular Plant Taxonomy & Bibliography of Croatian Flora (FCD), Faculty of Science, Botany, University of Zagreb - http://hirc.botanic/fcd/