The Elqui River starts in the west Andes and flows into the Pacific Ocean near the Chilean city of La Serena . It is a wine and pisco producing area. Vicuña , the main town of the middle valley, was the home of Nobel Laureate poet Gabriela Mistral .
18-536: The invasive plant species Limnobium laevigatum is present in the river which is its northernmost locale in Chile. About a quarter of the toponymy in Elqui Valley is of indigenous origin, overwhelmingly Quechua and Mapuche . There is scant Diaguita (Kakan) toponyy known in the area despite it being considered a homeland of that people by various authors. Quechua toponymy is related to valleys incorporation to
36-399: A description of a particular plant practically loses its value. Use of these terms is not restricted to leaves, but may be applied to morphology of other parts of plants, e.g. bracts , bracteoles , stipules , sepals , petals , carpels or scales . Some of these terms are also used for similar-looking anatomical features on animals. Leaves of most plants include a flat structure called
54-475: A focus upon irrigation canals in the San Joaquin valley. Treatments have included mechanical and hand removal and application of appropriate aquatic herbicides including diquat and glyphosate upon remaining plants. Cordate (leaf shape) The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina'
72-411: A great capacity for distribution in that they are small, they float and can be easily and quickly carried along by water currents. Amazon Frogbit in captivity has two hazards to its health which aquarium owners can avoid: (1) water droplets on the tops of the leaves can rot the plant (they must be kept dry), and (2) some species of aquatic snail appear to like to eat the spongy material on the bottoms of
90-399: A leaf. may be coarsely dentate , having large teeth or glandular dentate , having teeth which bear glands Leaves may also be folded, sculpted or rolled in various ways. If the leaves are initially folded in the bud, but later unrolls it is called vernation , ptyxis is the folding of an individual leaf in a bud. The Latin word for 'leaf', folium , is neuter. In descriptions of
108-537: A severe depopulation in the Transverse Valleys of Norte Chico , the wider Diaguita homeland. Chilean toponymy in Tarija , Bolivia, including "Erqui" along with other evidence have been interpreted to suggest that Incas deported defeated tribes from Elqui Valley to southern Bolivia. After or during conquest Incas would have settled foreign tribes in Elqui Valley, and ended up imposing Quechua placenames on
126-554: Is a floating aquatic plant , and is a member of the family Hydrocharitaceae . Common names include West Indian spongeplant , South American spongeplant and Amazon or smooth frogbit . This plant was introduced to North American waterways through use in aquariums and aquascapes . Spongeplant originates from fresh water habitats of tropical and subtropical Central and South America . In California it has been introduced as an ornamental pond plant, and has escaped into greater waterways including areas surrounding Redding and Arcata,
144-419: Is commonly used for plant identification. Similar terms are used for other plant parts, such as petals , tepals , and bracts . Leaf margins (edges) are frequently used in visual plant identification because they are usually consistent within a species or group of species, and are an easy characteristic to observe. Edge and margin are interchangeable in the sense that they both refer to the outside perimeter of
162-516: Is not always clear whether because of ignorance, or personal preference, or because usages change with time or context, or because of variation between specimens, even specimens from the same plant. For example, whether to call leaves on the same tree "acuminate", "lanceolate", or "linear" could depend on individual judgement, or which part of the tree one collected them from. The same cautions might apply to "caudate", "cuspidate", and "mucronate", or to "crenate", "dentate", and "serrate". Another problem
180-535: Is to establish definitions that meet all cases or satisfy all authorities and readers. For example, it seems altogether reasonable to define a mucro as "a small sharp point as a continuation of the midrib", but it may not be clear how small is small enough, how sharp is sharp enough, how hard the point must be, and what to call the point when one cannot tell whether the leaf has a midrib at all. Various authors or field workers might come to incompatible conclusions, or might try to compromise by qualifying terms so vaguely that
198-585: Is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets ). The edge of the leaf may be regular or irregular, and may be smooth or have hair, bristles, or spines. For more terms describing other aspects of leaves besides their overall morphology see the leaf article. The terms listed here all are supported by technical and professional usage, but they cannot be represented as mandatory or undebatable; readers must use their judgement. Authors often use terms arbitrarily, or coin them to taste, possibly in ignorance of established terms, and it
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#1732773145355216-614: The Sacramento river delta and the San Joaquin River , and ponds and irrigation canals. It is an invasive species in Chile where it has been found from Elqui River in the north to Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary and Ranco Lake in the south. Limnobium laevigatum is a floating aquatic plant, which can be mistaken for water hyacinth ( Eichornia crassipes ) due to their superficial similarity. Juvenile plants grow in rosettes of floating leaves that lie prostrate upon
234-528: The Inca Empire in the late 15th and early 16th-century. Some Mapuche toponymy posdates Inca rule, but other may be coeval or even precede it. Toponyms recognised as Nahua , Kunza , Diaguita , Aymara and Taino make together up less than 10% of the all placenames in Elqui Valley. It is generally accepted that incorporation of north-central Chile to the Inca Empire was through warfare which caused
252-429: The blade or lamina, but not all leaves are flat, some are cylindrical. Leaves may be simple, with a single leaf blade, or compound, with several leaflets . In flowering plants , as well as the blade of the leaf, there may be a petiole and stipules ; compound leaves may have a rachis supporting the leaflets. Leaf structure is described by several terms that include: Being one of the more visible features, leaf shape
270-773: The fruit is a fleshy capsule 4–13 mm long and 2–5 mm in diameter, and seeds are 1 mm long, ellipsoid, and hairy. Limnobium laevigatum , or Smooth Frogbit can be distinguished from Limnobium spongia , American frogbit, by flower and leaf characteristics as well as range. The flowers of both species vary greatly over their ranges. American frogbit is not known to occur in western states unlike smooth frogbit. American frogbit in general has more cordate -based floating leaves, while smooth frogbit generally has more spatulate floating leaves. Limnobium laevigatum can reproduce and distribute sexually through flower pollination and seed production, and also vegetatively through fragmentation of stolon segments. The juvenile plants have
288-669: The local geography. There is uncertainty about the date of these transfers. Chronicler Diego de Rosales tells of an anti-Inca rebellion in the Diaguita lands of Coquimbo and Copiapó concurrent with the Inca Civil War . This rebellion would have been brutally repressed by the Incas who gave rebels "great chastise". 29°53′40″S 71°16′30″W / 29.89444°S 71.27500°W / -29.89444; -71.27500 Limnobium laevigatum Limnobium laevigatum
306-414: The plant leaves (keep them near the center of the tank, not against the glass on the edges.) California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) crews which already manage other invasive aquatic plants including Hydrilla verticillata and Eichhornia crassipes have focused efforts upon Limnobium laevigatum . The CDFA has carried out detection and mapping of spongeplant throughout California, with
324-478: The water surface, a distinguishing character of the juvenile plant is the presence of spongy aerenchyma tissue upon the abaxial surface (underside) of the leaf. Mature plants grow up to 50 cm tall, and have emergent leaves borne on petioles that are not swollen or inflated like the spongy leaf stalks of water hyacinth, which aid in buoyancy. Spongeplant produces stolons which bear gametes. Flowers are small, white, and unisexual. Female flowers have an inferior ovary,
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