Notes on the Genus Umbilicus DC. (Crassulanceae) in the Canary Islands

              Notes on the Genus Umbilicus DC.
by Per Sunding
Botanical Garden, University of Oslo, Norway
(recibido en la redacción: 13.1.1968)
RESUMEN
Notas wbre el G4nero Urnbilicus DC. en las Islas Canurias: Según citaciones
de diferentes autores tratando la flora canaria, nombres de varias especies de este
género aparecen, como UmZ~ilicus o (su sin6niino) Cotyledan. De acuerdo con in-vestigaciones
modernas el número de especies citadas alcanza a ocho, mientras
que probablemente sólo dos especies ocurren de verdad en la flora del archipié-lago:
Utnbilicus I~orizontalis (Guss.) DC., U. heylaridian-s W et B. En los demás
casos, generalmente, se trata de errores en la deterrninacion de especies. Yara tacili-tar
la clasificación de Umbilicus en Canarias, una tabla-clave es presentado en la
pág. 16.
When studying the botanical literature on the Canary
Islands one will discover that quite a lot of different species
of the genus Umbilicus have been reported from the archipe-lago.
Very often, however, each author only mentions one sin-gle
or two species in his treatise. Obviously the various na-mes
have been used with different meanings by the various
authors. From herbarium material it will be seen that erro-neous
identifications of specimens of the genus are frequent,
and older literature records obviously must be used with
great care. The problem thus arises over which species of the
genus really do occur in the Canary Islands (cp. Lems 1960:
40).
During phytosociological field work in Gran Canaria in
1965, 1966, and 1967 the genus was studied and collected ea-gerly.
Later collections of the genus from the Canary Islands
and other parts of Macaronesia in severa1 European herbaria
(using the Stardard abbreviations of Index Herbariorum
C19641, the herbaria of O, GB, C, K, HAMU, B, and HEID)
were studied. Living plants were transplanted to the Botani-cal
Garden, University of Oslo and studied in cultivation.
Besides the recent treatment of the genus Umbilicus in
Webb (1964 a), the descriptions and keys provided in Berger
(1930) and Jacobsen (1954) hace been used for species dclimi-tation.
1. U. horizontalis (Guss.) DC.
Syn. U. vulgaris Knoche p.p., Coiyledop2 horizontalis Guss., C.urnbi1icu.r-v~neris
L. p.p.
Of ihe ilerbariurn coiiections from the Canary ísianiis of
the above mentioned herbaria al1 specimens except two were
found to be U. horizontalis. About half of this material of U.
horizontalis was correctly determined as that species (or to U.
gaditanus Boiss., see below). The remaining half of the ma-terial
of U. horizontalis was determined as U. rupestris, a spe-cies
that is probably not present in the Canary Islands at all.
Specimens of U. horizontalis were seen from the islands of
Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Hierro, and La Palma. However,
plants of the genus have been recorded from al1 of the seven
larger islands of the archipelago (Pitard & Proust 1908: 186,
Lems 1960: 40) and records from the other islands probably
also pertain to this particular species. Pitard & Proust (1.c.)
recognize three varieties within their U. pendulinus, with
"Fa. U. horizontalis" as the most common.
In Gran Canaria where 1 have had opportunity to study
wild growing species, U. horizontalis is rather frecluent, both
in thc higher part of the basa1 region and in the montane re-gion.
It grows in crevices in steep, more or less moss covered
rocks or in stable soil on steep slopes, often also in shady ha-bitats
in wood land. U. horizontalis occurs here as a characte-ristic
species of plant communities beloging to the vegetation
class Asplenietea rupestris, like U. rupestris in southern Eu-rope
(Rivas Goday & Borja Carbonell1961, Rigual et al. 1962,
Braun - Blanquet 1966, etc). In Yugoslavia U. horizontalis is
reported to occur in similar rock wall communities of the class
Asplenietea (Horvatic 1963). The most frecuent associated
spxiee nf v x c d s r plzntc Sra ,d,ich?yron dichnto~rxm, A.
punctatum, Monanthes brachycaulon, Polypodium spp.
(Kunkel 1965 and 1966),Habenaria tridactylites, Selaginella
dmticwlsts, etc., ufid In the r r imtune rebien A,DO'Y?CG~IU'PLr+ -L ~
tosum, Greenovia aurea, Babcockia platylepis, etc.
2. V. gaciii-anus Eoiss.
Syn.Cotyledon gaditana (Boiss). Boiss. et Reut., C. umbilicus - veneris L. ssp.
gaditana (Boiss.) Emb. et Müire.
Thir rp~cierh as h e ~ nr e por t~df rom the Canary Tslands
by several authors instead of, or besides U. horizontalis (see
for instance Bornmüller 1903 and 1904, Pitard & Proüst 1908,
Liiidhgei= 1926). iii ihe iiieiiii"iied hel-lDai=iaso me "f
the U. horizontalis collections were also determined as U. ga-ditanus.
From the diagnosis of U. gaditanus (see Boissier &
Reuter 1852: 45, cp. also the data provided in Bornmüller
1903) it is not possible to find clear differences to U. hori-zontalis.
1 fully agree with Webb (1961: 24 and 1964 a), who
has also studied the type material of U. gaditanus, in that this
taxon i S n o t S e p a r a b 1 e from U. horizontalis.
3. U. rupestris (Salisb.) Dandy.
Syn. U. perididinus DC.- U. vulgaris Knoche p.p., Cotvledon rupestris Salisb.,
C. pndulinn (TX.)R att., C . tuhernst~T .., C . rrmhilic.~~.r-vrrrrrCiv. p.p.
In one herbarium sheet belonging to the herbarium of the
Botanical Museurn of Copenhagen (C) is found a specimen of
U. mpestris (as Cotyledon umbilicus) supposed to have been
collected in the Canary Islands. The specimen originates
from the collections of Christen Sinith, the Norwegian bo-tanist
who together with the German geologist Leopold von
Buch visited the Canary Islands in 1815. As usual with the
collections of Christen Smith no data are given as to from
which particular island the specimen originates (only "e Ca-nariis
- C. Smith", in his own hand - writing). The specimen
is mounted on a herbarium sheet with two other collections
(also of U. rupestris), originating from Portugal and from the
botanical garden in Copenhagen respectively. It seems highly
probable that the claimed Canary Islands specimen must ha-ve
been erroneously labelled, especially as U. rupestris is not
found in any other collection from the archipelago. On his
way to the Canary Islands Smith also stopped in Madeira
and made botanical collections there (Kiaer 1889). In al1 li-kelihood
the above mentioned specimen of U. rupestris origi-nates
from Madeira where this species is common. In the lists
of plants collected in the Canary Islands (Buch 1819 and 1825)
t h c only spzzizs vf U-biliez;s mentioned is U. ~ ~ i p e s t(~/ais s
Cotyiedon urnbilicus). However, the collections of Smith
from the Canary Islands (among others in C) also contain ty-picai
U. horizontaiis.
U. rupestris (U. pendulinus) is a name often used in
w~ r k so n thr Cunury f h r u (Webb W Eerthelet 1g36 41, Km
che 1923, Burchard 1929, etc), and for wild seed material in
th seed list of the Jardin de Aclimatación de La Orotava in
m lenerife. Tnis confusion may be due to tile wicie use oi U.
pendulinus including U. horizontalis. As mentioned above al1
specimens seen, except for the dubious one of Smith, have
been misidentified U. horizontalis. Probably the real U. ru-pestris
is not present in the archipelago. Already in Berger
(19.10. 417) and Js(wbsc-.n (1954 1117) itr, nrriirmrc-. in thc-.
Canary Islands is questionned, and in the distribution records
of U. rupestris in Palhinha (1966: 47) the Canary Islands are
omitted. In Madeira on the contrary the species is rather com-mon,
judging from herbarium material examined. Also in the
Azores the species occurs commonly as does U. horizontalis
(Webb 1964 a, Palhinha 1966).
4. U. heylandianus Webb et Berth.
Syn. U. praealtrts (Brot.) Mariz, U. errrtus Willk., non DC., U. .~trutigulatu.s
(Font Quer) Berg., Cotylcdon praerrltn (Brot.) Samp., C. umbilicus L. var
pruealtus Brot., C. .strairgulufu Font Quer, C. courirzlioi Cout., Granlrnan-tlies
heyiaridiurra (Webb et Berth.) Webb. in Christ (1888).
In the herbarium material examined one specimen of
this species was found (K): La Palma: Cumbre de Tirajafe
(without date of collecting), Dr. Elias Santos. Dr. Santos cor-rectly
named it U. heylandianus, the specimen later (ob-viously
with some hesitation) had been redetermined in the
herbarium as U. pendulinus.
The easily recognizable U. heylandianus (not heynaldianus,
as in Webb 1961), see illustrations and description in Webb &
Rert,helot. (1836-41, P1. 26, and p. only has fnr the CI-nary
Islands, been recorded definately from La Palma where
it grows in the highlands among Cistus and Hypericum
shrubs (Webb & Berthelut l.c., Burcl-iard 1929: 146). It has
not been possible to verify the records of the species from
Gran Canaria from herbarium material (Font Quer 1957, and
in seed list of 1949/50 of the Jardín de Aclimatación de La
Orotava) nor have 1 ever seen this species wild in Gran Ca-naria.
5. U. luteus Webb et Berth.
The species, in Index Kewensis (1895) erroneouslg pre-sumed
to originate from the Canary Islands, is not mentioned
from the archipelago in the original diagnosis (Webb & Ber-thelot
1836-41 p. 177). The taxonomic position of this taxon
seems somewhat unclear, but judging from the description
and the distribution as given in Webb & Berthelot (1.c.) it
pr-u'uably is a synonym ¿o ibe East Meciiterranean U. erectus
DC., which is not knovm from the Canary Islands either (cp.
below).
6. U. erectus DC.
The dubious rccord of Sauer (1880) and Bolle (1892) of
U. erectm UC. irom the eastern island Lanzarote clearly does
not refer to what is now meant by this name, i.e. a rather lar-ge
species of an East Mediterranean distribution (Webb 1964
a). The name U. erectus (sensu Willk.) has also been used for
U. heylandianus (cp. synonymy under that species), and Lin-
Uin-ay - & (1926) i d i m t ~ tsh at thc Lanzarote plant í-iiight have
been that species. However, it seems highly unlikely that U.
heylandianus could possibly survive under the arid and un-favourable
conditions of that island. Probably it is another
misidentification of the ecologically variable U. horizontalis.
7. U. schmidtii Bolle.
Syn. U. Iiorizontalis J. A. Schmidt, non (Guss.) DC., Cotyledon horizontale
Henriq., non Guss.
1 According to Stearn (1937) the year of publication of the pages containing
the original description of U. heylandianus is 1840. The illustration in P1. 26, ho-wever,
was already published in 1836.
U. schmidtii is a taxon described from and confined to
the Cape Verde Islands (Bolle 1859, Pettersson 1960). Reports
of this species from the Canary Islands (Index Kewensis 1895
[erroneously, cp. diagnosis in Bolle l.c.1, Rerger 1930, Jacob-sen
1954) pertain to U. horizontalis (Guss.) DC.
8. U. hispidus (Lam.) DC.
Annual species, now generally placed in the genus Mu-cizonia
as M. hispida (Lam.) Berg. (Berger 1930: 419, Webb
1964 b). Reported in older times from Tenerife (Webb & Ber-thelot
1836-41 : 178).
From the results of studies of the genus Umbilicus in the field in the Canary
Islands and in herbaria it is presumed that only two species, viz. U. horizontalis and
U. heylandianus (besides Mucizonia hispida) are known for sure from the archi-pelago.
Other names mentioned in works on the flora of the Canary Islands are due
either to a different use of the various naines in older times or to misidentifications
of the plants. For the Canarian species (and including U. rupestris which is proba-bly
not present in the Canary Islands, but which has rather often been mentioned
in flora lists of the archipelago) the following characteristics might be used in spe-cies
separation (cp. also Webb 1964 a):
Eeigh oí piani
Position of flowers
Corolla colour
Corolla length
,b-,.w..,.l'l,w. l ln --.. 4h l l l V U L U
Corolla lobes
Stamens
Length of
inflorescence bract
Ecolog
U. horizontalis
i U - 40 siii
horizontal
yellow -
slightly brownisl
ca. 7 mm
opcicn
lanceolate -
triangular,
acuminate
rock-wall plant
IG - sí3 cm.
pendent
yellowish
green -
reddish or
brownish
7 - 10mm
epcn
ovate,
mucronate
10
,- pedicels
rock-wall plant
U. hevlandianus
GG - :OV ciii -- pendent
bright
yellow
10 - 12 mm
rczstricted
ovate -
lanceolate,
longly
acuiiiiiiate
usiially 5
twice of
that of the
pedicels or
much longer
in shrubland
L I T E R A T U R E
R F ~ ~ .A - ~i o m . 6 ~ r - n o o . . i q p - , 7 3 . I ~ ~: ~E. ~ lK.: ~i~~ , T g ~ ~~~ , y ! ~ c ,! z e z YL,L.YYn> 1 s. - I d " . .,.CLUYUIC...II..-
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