What is the fruit of the moth family. Moth family (Fabaceae, or Leguminosae). cultivated leguminous plants

nutritional value

The nutritional value of legumes is enormous. Before the spread of potatoes in Europe, millions of people daily ate, along with cereals, nutritious, cheap and prolific legumes: peas, garden beans, cowpeas (a relative of beans, unfortunately forgotten in Europe today), beans themselves, imported into XVI century. And now large regions (for example, Asia, South America) are very widely used for food legumes. We list some of the most famous plants.

1. Common beans. An annual herbaceous plant. The leaves are alternate, ternate, with stipules. Inflorescence - brush. It does not tolerate low temperatures, but it is more drought-resistant than peas.

2. Soy. It is ubiquitous in South and Southeast Asia, cultivated in many warm regions. Nutritious, contains up to 40 percent protein, up to 25 percent fat. Herbaceous plant, with ternate leaves. Many products are made from soy (natto, tofu, tempeh, etc.) or with its addition, soybean oil is widely used.

3. Peanut (peanut) is a herbaceous plant with paired pinnate leaves. Beans are formed underground. How does this happen? After fertilization, the flowers sink underground, where beans with a hard shell ripen. Homeland - South America, cultivated in Central Asia. Seeds contain up to 37 percent protein, up to 45 percent fat. Peanut butter is popular, as are a variety of peanut snacks. In the United States, they love peanut butter so much that they even established a special holiday for it on January 24th.

feed value

1. From fodder varieties of legumes, silage is produced - juicy nutritious animal feed obtained by fermenting green mass herbaceous plants. Broad beans, corn, alfalfa, vetch, sainfoin are used for silage.

2. The stems and leaves of legumes (melilot, clover, alfalfa, vetch, ledvyants, peas) are mowed, dried, and they become an excellent addition to the diet of animals in those regions where year-round grazing is impossible.

Agronomic importance

1. They enrich the soil with nitrogen, being the so-called "green fertilizers", or, scientifically, green manure (astragalus, vetch, sweet clover, etc.). How does this happen? Legumes store large amounts of nitrogen as they grow. Even during flowering, the plants plow and they, rotting, return nitrogen to the soil.

2. The roots of legumes, long and strong, loosen the soil well, saturate it with oxygen, and prevent erosion.

decorative value

The legume family combines a variety of plants, including emphatically decorative ones. They make wonderful additions to parks, gardens, and personal plots: for example, black locust, broom, clianthus with its large red flowers of an unusual shape.

medicinal value

And here legumes are indispensable companions of man. They have been used in medicine for thousands of years! Thermopsis lanceolate, licorice, sweet clover are used in the treatment of cough, have a lot useful properties. Cassia helps in the treatment of stomach, astragalus - in hypertension. In addition, many legumes are valuable honey plants, since the collected honey is a delicious medicine in itself.

This is the most common of the families (about 17,000 species).

The flowers resemble moths, hence the second name of the family - moths. Trees and shrubs (in hot countries), annual and perennial herbs (in cold climates).

Dietary legumes - peas, beans, soybeans, lentils, peanuts. Forage - clover, alfalfa, vetch. Many - medicinal plants(licorice, thermopsis). Wild-growing - camel thorn, licorice, forest peas, etc. Some legumes are grown as ornamental plants(acacia yellow and white).

The leaves of legumes can be trifoliate (clover, beans)), pinnate (soybeans, peas), palmate (lupine):

The legume flower is five-petalled, bilaterally symmetrical. Each of the petals has its own name: the top one is the sail. Two petals on the sides - oars. The two lower petals fused at the end are a boat. The boat covers one pistil, surrounded by nine fused stamens and one free (or ten fused). Flower formula Ch(5)L1,2(2)T(9),1P1

The flowers of legumes are solitary or collected in a head (clover), or a brush (clover, lupine). From the ovary, a fruit develops - a bean. The seeds contain a lot of protein.

Most legumes have root nodules in which nitrogen-fixing bacteria live. Plants need nitrogen, but they cannot get it from the air on their own.

When the plant is pulled out of the ground, the nodules come off and remain in the ground, enriching the soil with nitrogen.

The legume family has another name - Moth. This family belongs to the class Dicotyledons. It includes a huge number of plants.

Among the common features of all plants of the legume family, the following should be noted. The flowers of the representatives of the family are irregular. They have five petals, differing in shape and size, and ten stamens. Legumes have a characteristic structure. Their name corresponds to the name of the family - bean. Common features include the fact that the ovary is always single-membered, not divided into lobes. The fruit is always bicuspid, in most cases polyspermic. One-seeded is found only in plants of the genus Clover. When the seeds ripen, the fruit bursts along the seam. Seeds are attached directly to the valves.
The legume family is very large. It includes more than two hundred genera and more than six thousand species. Legumes grow all over the world, in all latitudes and climatic conditions. They are found in alpine meadows and the Far North, as well as in deserts and tropical forests.
In the family, herbaceous forms and trees with shrubs are almost equally represented.
The large family is divided into three subfamilies: Legumes proper, which include the largest number of representatives, Mimosas and Caesalpinias, which grow exclusively in warm climates.
Representatives of the legume subfamily have a two-symmetrical flower. It consists of a persistent calyx with five sepals, a corolla of five petals, ten stamens and a pistil. The petals of the opened flower resemble a moth with open wings. From this came the name moth. Also, a flower is often compared with a boat. The largest petal is called a sail, the side small symmetrical petals are called oars, and the lower fused petals are called a boat. It is in the boat that the pistil and ten stamens are located, of which nine are fused, and one is free (in most species of the subfamily). The fused stamens form a plate that encircles the pistil.
The leaf blade of legumes is usually complex. They can be pinnate, palmate with a large number of leaflets. Often these plants have stipules, which can reach considerable sizes, in some cases larger than the leaves themselves. Mustaches are common elements. They develop on top of compound leaves. Antennae are both simple and branching.

The legume subfamily includes many genera of commonly known plants: Beans, Lupins, Lentils, Soybeans, Vika and many others.

Significantly fewer genera belong to the subfamily Caesalpiniaceae. This group is characterized by less irregular flowers. They have all ten stamens not fused and lower petals that are not fused, which in plants of the legume subfamily form a boat. The fruits of the Caesalpinias open one at a time or do not open at all. This subfamily includes genera, Caesalpinia, Tamarind, Carob and some others.

Even fewer genera are included in the Mimozov subfamily. They only grow in warm climates. The flowers are small, almost regular, collected in dense inflorescences of the head, and sometimes in the brush. The number of sepals and petals varies from four to six. The number of stamens ranges from four to an indefinite number. Mimosa leaves are usually bipinnate and have small lobes. The fruits are a standard bean with no special differences. Most prominent representatives mimosa are bashful mimosa, real acacia and some others.

The legume family is an extensive group that includes a variety of representatives. It also contains medicinal plants. These include Galega officinalis, Ulcer healing, Red clover and many others.

If we consider the economic importance of legumes, it is worth noting that they are second only to cereals. Since ancient times, the fruits of legumes have been used as food and now they are the most important food product. They cultivate beans, peas, beans, soybeans and peanuts, mung beans. There are tropical legumes of the genus Pachyzirus that form tubers, which are also eaten.
In addition to food, there are fodder legumes, such as clover, alfalfa, lupine, vetch.
Legumes also provide valuable timber. First of all, these are trees belonging to the genera Acacia and Prosopis. Valuable wood is provided by aformosia golden, dalbergia, pterocarpus and many other tropical trees belonging to the legume family.

, zygomorphic , with double perianth . The calyx is joint-leaved, 5-4-toothed, sometimes 2-lipped. Corolla "moth", consists of a flag, or sail, two wings, or oars, and a boat formed by two fused petals and covering stamens and pistil. There are usually 10 stamens, of which 9 grow together with filaments, sometimes all 10 stamens grow together, rarely all 10 are free. Gynoecium apocarpous from 1 carpel. Ovary superior 1-locular, with several or many campylotropic ovules with 2 integuments along the ventral suture. The fruit is a bean.

The seeds often have a very hard seed coat. Seeds are short. The scar is usually large.

400 genera and about 9000 species worldwide.

Moths are a huge family, which is in the 3rd place in terms of the number of species, and in the 4th place in terms of the number of genera among the families of flowering plants.

Some genera of moths contain very many species. Astragalus, the largest genus in the family, has 1,500 species. It is also the largest flowering genus in the flora of the former USSR (more than 800 species). The role of moths is very significant not only in temperate and cold latitudes, but also in tropical countries especially among herbs. Many of them are characteristic climbing plants of the tropics, but among the moths there are also woody vines, such as wisteria (Wistaria sinensis), as well as shrubs and trees. There are more of the latter in the tropics, but some are well known to residents of temperate countries, primarily white locust (Robinia pseudacacia), originating from North America, and yellow locust (Caragana arborescens), originally from Altai. These acacias should not, of course, be confused with real acacias (Acacia) from the mimosa family.

Moths are very easy to recognize by their peculiar corolla and androecium, clearly adapted for pollination by hymenoptera. For example, under the weight of a bumblebee landing on a flower, the wings, together with the boat, descend, exposing the lower part of the stamen tube, which contains the pistil. The openness of the tube, thanks to one free stamen, facilitates access to the nectar, which is secreted at the base of the pistil. In many moths, however, there is self-pollination, at least facultative. You can offer the following formula for a moth flower with a 2-lip cup, for example, beans (Vicia faba): K3,2C1,2 (2) A (5 + 4) 1G1_

Most moths have complex, unpaired leaves, but, for example, in peas (Pisum), the genus vetch (Vicia) and the genus rank (Lathyrus), a tendril develops in place of the final leaflet. These are climbing or clinging plants. Trifoliate leaves are very common among moths, especially in the tropics, but they are not uncommon in our latitudes. Suffice it to recall the various clover (Trifolium), alfalfa (Medicago) or beans (Phaseolus).

The root systems of moths are characterized by a powerfully developed tap root, sometimes reaching colossal depths; for example, in the desert camel thorn (Alhagi), according to some sources, up to 20 m, which allows you to extract water from very deep horizons. Roots usually contain many sclerenchymal elements. A remarkable feature of them is also the settlement of bacteria that have the ability to use the nitrogen of the atmosphere for the synthesis of proteins. They are called nodule bacteria, since as a result of their introduction into the primary root bark, the latter grows, forming nodules. Thanks to this symbiotic relationship, many moths thrive in nitrogen-poor soils. When the organs of moth plants die, the soil is enriched with nitrogen-containing compounds, which, through other bacteria, are subsequently used by various green plants. The economic role of many moths is based on this.

Although all moths have the same type of fruit in principle - bean, the shape and size of the latter are very diverse (Fig. 135). Beans are not always multi-seeded and open with two valves, like peas. Non-opening beaded and 1-seed beans are often found (compare with pods). In some species of the liana genus Mucuna (Mucuna), common in the tropics, they are covered with so-called "itchy hairs" (like the caterpillars of the marching silkworm), which cause unbearable itching throughout the body, even when laying a plant for a herbarium.

The seeds of some tropical species are brightly colored red and black. The most famous in this regard is the abrus (Abrus precatorius), climbing plant, slightly reminiscent of Vika. It is curious that in these plants, when the bean is opened, the seeds do not spill out, remaining clearly visible against the background of greenery. Here is one of the options

The Latin name is fabaceae or papillionaceae.
Dicotyledonous class.

Description. The name of this family is determined both by the name of the fruit - a bean, and by the shape of the flower, the corolla of which looks like a flying moth. Leguminous plants come in a wide variety of life forms, from tiny desert plants to huge trees and vines, but they all share the same traits. Their fruit is a bean, moth-like flowers, and nodules formed by bacteria are located on the surface of the roots. Other salient feature legumes is the ability of nodule bacteria to fix gaseous nitrogen from the atmosphere in addition to soil nitrogen.

The legume family unites more than 17 thousand species of valuable cultivated and wild plants and is divided into three subfamilies: mimosa, caesalpinia and moth. Its representatives are adapted to any natural conditions and are environment-forming within many plant communities, and woody and herbaceous forms are almost equally abundant. The largest plant of the family is the tropical hard-leaved bean tree Malacca compassia (koompassia moluccana) with a height of 82.4 m and a trunk diameter of 1.49 m.

Legumes are plants that differ greatly from each other, both economically and biologically, i.e. relation to moisture, heat and food. Some of them have seeds rich in protein - this is food products(soy, peas, beans, lentils, peanuts, etc.). Many legumes are forage grasses (alfalfa, clover, lupine, camel thorn, sweet clover, etc.), which are valuable animal feed, both green and dry. There are medicinal leguminous plants(licorice, broomstick, thermopsis), melliferous (saradella, pacelia) and even technical (crotalaria, sinegal acacia). Twenty-three types of legumes are listed in the Red Book of Russia.

Very mobile nodule bacteria in size from 0.5 to 3 microns live in the tissues of the moth roots. After penetrating into the root hair, they cause an intensive division of its cells, resulting in a small growth - a nodule. Plants get from bacteria required amount nitrogen compounds, and those, in turn, receive vital organic substances from the plant.

All plants of the legume family, as a rule, have compound leaves: in lupine they are palmately complex, in beans, soybeans and clover they are trifoliate, in peas they are paired-pinnate, and in white acacia they are unpaired-pinnate. The arrangement of the leaves is alternate. At their base are well-developed paired stipules in the form of either green leaves (peas) or thorns (white locust).

legume flower incorrect and consists of 5 unequal petals that have received certain names. The largest one is called a sail, a pair of neighboring, narrower and symmetrically located ones are oars or wings, and the last two, fused along the lower edge, are called a boat, inside which, surrounded by 10 stamens, a pistil is placed. All flowers are single or collected in inflorescences: a brush (lupins, peas), a head (clover) or a simple umbrella (Lotus). Their number in the inflorescence is different, up to one, but then quite large. Moth flower formula: H (5) L 1 + 2 + (2) T 1 + (4 + 5) P 1 or Ca (5) Co 1 + 2 + (2) A 1 + (4 + 5) G 1

Legume, called a bean, and popularly a pod, has a special structure and develops from a single carpel. It is a kind of one-celled fruit with two valves, seeds are attached to the inside of which. In some species of moths (single-seeded) there is only one bean seed, in most others (multi-seeded) there are several. When ripe, the fruits open one by one (for representatives of the subfamily Caesalpinia) or two seams. Beans come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. The largest, reaching a length of up to 1.5 m, is in the climbing eptad (Enlacia scaridens). It is also the largest in the world.

Spreading. Plants of the moth family grow on all continents from the tropics to the polar islands and in different natural zones from deserts to wet forests and swamps. In most countries with warm temperate, tropical and boreal climates, they form the bulk of the local flora. Only in places with a cold climate is the proportion of their participation relatively small. Representatives of legumes perfectly adapted to the lack of moisture on infertile clay soils, moving sands, and are even able to climb mountains to a height of up to 5 thousand meters. In the humid tropics and subtropics, they are often included in forests as the main species.

Moth breeding characterized by the type of pollination and a wide variety of methods of dispersal of seeds. Many cereals legumes(peas, soybeans, beans, some types of lupine, etc.) are self-pollinators. They are pollinated by the flowers of one plant. When the pollen is fully ripe, the anther of the stamen bursts, and it is carried by insects or wind.

The most important role in the process of moving bean grains is played by wind and water. Pterygoid outgrowths sometimes allow the fruits to freely plan for tens of meters, like a tropical tree of the Malacca compass. A variety of outgrowths or tiny spikes that act as hooks contribute to the settlement of plants by animals. There are also known facts when a ripe fruit cracks, opening with two wings. At this moment, the valves simultaneously twist with force, scattering the seeds a meter from the parent plant. Under favorable storage conditions, bean seeds, even after a decade, are able to give excellent germination.