''Quinchamalium'' is a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

in the family

Schoepfiaceae Schoepfiaceae is a family of flowering plants recognized in the APG III system of 2009. The family was previously only recognized by few taxonomists; the plants in question usually being assigned to family Olacaceae and Santalaceae. The genus '' ...

, with a single species ''Quinchamalium chilense'', native to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

and

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

. Depending on the latitude, it can be found from sea level to 3,800 m in elevation.

Etymology

It is locally called ''quinchamalí''. The word ''kincha'' translates from

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...

as 'hedge of sticks', as often made from dead old

quinoa Quinoa (''Chenopodium quinoa''; , from Quechuan languages, Quechua ' or ') is a flowering plant in the Amaranthaceae, amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are high in prote ...

plants (see quincha).

Description

''Quinchamalium chilense'' is a

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

hemiparasitic A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All parasitic plants develop a specialized organ called the ...

perennial plant In horticulture, the term perennial (''wikt:per-#Prefix, per-'' + ''wikt:-ennial#Suffix, -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annual plant, annuals and biennial plant, biennials. It has thus been d ...

with a

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

, from which smaller rootlets with

haustoria In botany and mycology, a haustorium (plural haustoria) is a rootlike structure that grows into or around another structure to absorb water or nutrients. For example, in mistletoe or members of the broomrape family, the structure penetrates th ...

grow. From the rhizome a number of rarely-branching stems grow each year. These can be decumbent (creeping over the ground) or rise to over 2 metres in height. The flowers are produced in a cluster at the end of the stems, they are pentamerous and usually orangey-yellow in colour. It is extremely variable in height and flower size and colour, so much so that at one time 21 species were recognised, but in 2015 these were all reduced to

synonymy A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

with ''Q. chilense''. It is heterostylous; some individuals bear 'thrum flowers', flowers which have short styles. This is somewhat correlated with elevation and cold. The leaves are also variable among individuals, they can be narrow or broader, the plants with more narrow leaves correlated with higher temperatures. The size of the plant appears correlated with annual precipitation. This species has rather bizarre embryos, these appear to be parasitic upon their mother plant before even being

pollinated Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, for example bees, beetles or butterflies; bird ...

. As the embryo develops in the ovule, the two

synergid In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: the ''integument'', forming its outer layer, the ''nucellus'' (or remnant of the megasporangium), and the fema ...

cells elongate into tubes which penetrate through the micropyle and grow about a third up the length of the

style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...

where they form haustoria, organs for sucking nutrients from a host. It also creates a lateral caecum (pouch) close to the other end of the embryo, the chalazal end, which extends in the basal region of funiculus. This rare situation is also known to occur in pampas grasses of the genus ''

Cortaderia ''Cortaderia'' is a genus of plants in the Poaceae or grass family of plants. All current species included in the ''Cortaderia'' genus are native to South and Central America, ranging from the Patagonia region of southern Chile and Argentina, ...

'' and some species of the '' Olax'' genus. As noted above, the individuals of this species can have 'thrum flowers' or 'pin flowers', which differ in form and length of the styles, and often have both. In most heterostylous plants, this is associated with self-incompatibility, but in ''Q. chilense'' both flower forms are bisexual and self-fertile. Nonetheless, the smaller pin flowers appear to create more pollen and have a higher seed set. Why these plants have different sized flowers is probably caused by some sort of pollinator relationship, but the gist of it is still unknown.

Ecology

''Quinchamalium chilense'' is a dominant plant species along with '' Festuca scabriuscula'', '' Poa obvalata'' and '' Adesmia emarginata'' in a type of

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

with scattered trees of ''

Araucaria araucana ''Araucaria araucana'', commonly called the monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, pewen, pehuen pine or piñonero, is an evergreen tree belonging to the family Araucariaceae and growing to a trunk diameter of and a height of . It is native to ...

'' found along the upper course of the

Biobío River The Biobío River (also known as Bío Bío or Bio-Bio) is the second largest river in Chile. It originates at Icalma and Galletué lakes in the Andes and flows to the Gulf of Arauco (in Spanish) on the Pacific Ocean. The major tributaries of ...

in the

Araucanía Region The Araucanía ( ), La Araucanía Region ( ) is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions, and comprises two provinces: Malleco in the north and Cautín in the south. Its capital and largest city is Temuco; other important cities ...

of Chile. This is a cold region at 1,500m altitude, with a dry season of one to two months, sometimes heavy rains, and temperatures which can fall below freezing. The fly '' Mitrodetus dentitarsis'' is known to visit the flowers in Chile, among other plants it visits.

Uses

In southern Chile the plant is used in

folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used for maintaining health and treatin ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q9065330, from2=Q15551662 Schoepfiaceae Monotypic Santalales genera