Stachys buttleri
Stachys buttleri R.R.Mill
Some Observational Notes
* PDF of this blog with a gallery of photos showing characteristics : archive.org or academia.edu
Location
Stachys buttleri can be found upon a high-standing rocky face at the Upper Düden Waterfall (Yakarı Düden Şelalesi), 36.963594,30.726496, whose upper part reaches an altitude 90 m, and which I visited on 2024-10-10.
It grows specifically on the western face, growing at ground level to a considerable distance up, with a vertical shaft in close proximity on the same face which holds a bat colony. As a popular site, there are many tourists there.
There are other rocky walls around, but it doesn't appear to grow on them - the north face is soaked in the waterfall, and as a fragile plant persisting on dryish rocks and experiencing no competition, the north face would not be a place to expect it, whilst the east side might perhaps get the occasional plant, however none appeared present there. If there are individual plants further down the streamside, inaccessibility makes that hard to assess, but none seem to have been reported, so this plant is known just to grow on this small area of west-side rock face.
For anyone that wishes, there are extended tour videos of the site on youtube, and photospheres on Google Streetview.
Habitat
Davis' Flora of Turkey gives its habitat as "damp rocks by waterfall, 50-90 m" which you might well expect from being beside a waterfall, and certainly in the rainy season it should be. However the rocks I could see appeared to be very dry and dusty, and in the Antalya climate will be dry for many months of the year, and this seems to me to be borne out by a conspicuous poverty of other types of vegetation on the rock face, and the dusty spiderwebs over what vegetation that did manage to grow there: with wet rocks you would expect mosses, saxifraga, small ferns etc to be growing, such as can be seen at nearby Kurşunlu Şelalesi on genuinely damp rocks.
Nevertheless there were sometimes Adiantum capillus-veneris ferns present at some points. Possibly some water could work through the rocks over a distance by osmosis, or be held for an extended period after the rainy season or an unseasonable fall of rain, whilst plants rooting at the ground base might root deeper into underground dampness picked up from the river, however there is not an accentuated amount of ground vegetation at ground level. For such a herbaceous plant it was looking incredibly healthy and green; by contrast, the S. trichopoda growing on the same face with its hard stems and coriaceous leaves had a lot of deadened parts. Given this situation I wonder if a reasonable amount of S. buttleri water intake may actually come from the air?
Overall Appearance
S. buttleri is a very herbaceous and fragile plant, densely long hairy, with large leaves and a disorderly drooping appearance, and was growing as relatively solitary plants on the rock face. It has a similar appearance to the S. pinardii found more widely around the area, to which comparison is duly made; I have photos of S. pinnardii from the city in southern Kepez (cavern 36.926085,30.683354) and in Varsak Kanyonu (cavern 36.992148,30.713397), and further out in the city at Kurşunlu Şelalesi (caverns and beside, apx 37.003014,30.819937), all places readily reachable by bus or tram.
Seeds
The seeds have sizeable transparent lines on which I would think to be a hard jelly nutrient attractive to insects, such as large ants, who can then carry the seeds higher up the walls and leave them where they then germinate. Such a method of dispersal would explain how the plants do reach up the rock face, and would also result in plants reaching the wall on the other side of the river with difficulty. Perhaps this could be examined more closely.
Stance
On the vertical faces where the plant mostly grows, it hangs downwards with the inflorescences pointing vertically downwards or at least diagonally so, however near the inflorescence apex the downward inflorescence curls a little out; but sometimes the inflorescence points sideways, in which case the end curl of the inflorescence directs upwards.
The other notable plant there, Scrophularia trichopoda, also mostly hangs its inflorescence downwards.
It would be harder for a plant whilst rooted to a vertical face to project a large inflorescence sideways, so vertical upwards or vertically downwards does make a lot of sense, with vertically downwards providing the least stress whilst also providing a means of catching light better in situations near a cavern roof.
However, when the plant is on the ground the inflorescence rises haphazardly upwards, although there are not many that grow at ground level.
This compares with S. pinardii, which likewise hangs its inflorescences downwards from vertical faces and cavern roofs, whilst on the ground or horizontals grows its parts fairly upright, however by contrast, S. pinardii does produce a large population at ground/horizontal level.
So when we talk about the hanging flowers of this section Fragiles, we should be thinking of the plants growing on vertical walls rather than the ground-growing ones that may also be present.
Hairs
S. buttleri is an excessively densely long, fine-haired plant, with hairs 3-3.5 mm, to 4 mm; the hairs are very fine indeed. The S. pinnardii I have seen have fine hairs mostly approaching 2 mm (a few to 4 mm). This difference in length means that the S. buttleri hairs are less able to maintain straightness compared to those of S. pinnardii, which is rather noticeable.
Hydration
As a herbaceous plant with large soft leaves it must be finding a way to get and retain water, whose problem was outlined under Habitat. Although water could be moving or retained in the rock, it was noted that the rocks were mostly dry and dusty, and would not receive rain for many months. It would therefore be interesting to consider that the extremely long, very fine hairs, might be picking up water from the air in the evening when the air cools - the glands might help provide a moisture-collecting surface (hygroscopic nature), and the fineness of the hairs could draw the water in by capilliary action. Perhaps electrostatic forces could play a part in such a process. This could be explored by studying it at night in summer and autumn. The long hairs could further create a layer of still air reducing evaporation caused by air movements allowing the plant to minimise water loss and so make full use of the water it gets, and given the plants were often widely covered by curtains and canopies of spider web, those where present may also fortuitously help reduce air movement. The S. pinardii I have seen did not have such spider webs.
Flowers
The flowers are white and in general come in whorls of 2 (some low whorls may have more). This compares to S. pinnardii, whose flowers are also white but generally larger in number (4+), although end season S. pinnardii or the end parts of its inflorescences can produce them in pairs as I see on some of my photos, so it pays to look at a number of plants.
By comparison only S. longiflora, distantly east, has flowers similarly in whorls of 2, which has a long corolla tube giving a corolla 22-32 mm (buttleri (11)14-20 mm) and from a photo a generally more compact, smaller-leaved appearance.
The calyxes of S. buttleri are also fatter in shape than S. pinnardii, perhaps reflecting the fact that it only grows 2 flowers per whorl, whilst S. pinnardii has to cater for the possibility of many more. This shape difference can be seen by spanning the mouth of a calyx and seeing how many times that will go into the length, S. buttleri being about length = 1.5 x mouth width, for S. pinardii this ratio is closer to 2.
The flower tubes are long and narrowish, which would suggest pollination by moths and insects, and there is a region of hairs (annulus) near the tube base.
The literature gives flowering time as May-July, although this visit shows them still flowering on 10 Oct, though not hugely so, so perhaps October represents the upper end time.
Leaves
The mature leaves of S. buttleri are fairly large (to 12 x 10 cm); they have far fewer, more conspicuous crenations than the S. pinnardii I have seen. There is a slight overlap for individual outlying leaves but generally this seems a very noticeable difference. There seems to be also a difference in conspicuousness of toothing which is most obvious approaching the leaf base, with on average S. buttleri having more prominent basal teeth and S. pinnardii poorly so.
Spider Webs & Bats
No experience of the plant can go without a mention of the spider webs, which drape the plants in astonishing curtains and canopies, becoming dirty with soil with age. It might be reasonable to ask if these webs benefit or hinder the plant. Given waterfalls may attract insects, perhaps they provide protection from some insects, and becoming brown with dirt they might provide nutrients.
Insects might well also be of interest to the bats there. It should be asked if the bats help fertilise the plants. They probably do not much directly leave droppings on the walls, however it would be interesting if the nitrogenous vapours from the colony being so close by could travel in the air and be absorbed at a very low but constant level by the plant via its hairs and glands in a similar way to the idea with the water. According to the web a moth can smell another moth from 10 km away, so it is important to properly explore biology's ability to pick up on molecules that seem to be at too low a concentration for consideration.
Conservation
The plant, growing in one spot, is classed as CR (Critical). It seems to be doing well at the moment, and being on rocks high above the tourists which are not likely to be developed means it is unlikely to become endangered by people.
Climate change would seem to be the main threat to its existance.
As a safeguard there may be a benefit to making a second colony of the plants somewhere else in as similar environment and as self-maintaining as possible.
Similar Plants
S. buttleri is part of the Fragiles subsection of the Fragicaulis section, whose other members are present in the wider region and bear a resemblance to it, with differences as follows:
S. chasmosericea - leaves seriaceous, flowers pink.
S. euadenia - mid-stem leaf stalks very short, flowers reddish.
S. antalyensis - inflorescences fairly upright with many (to 10) flowers per whorl.
S. longiflora - whorls also 2-flowered, but floral tubes much longer (in the fashion of Lamium amplexicaule).
S. pinardii and S. pseudopinardii - are visually rather similar to S. buttleri; both have 4+ flowers per whorl.
Further Study
I aim to visit in another season and so improve these notes and questions.
Aside from special visits by botanists, some of the study of the plant's year-round cycle could be provided by arranging with staff there to send in photos at the start of each month of how the plant is progressing.
Botanical Treatments
In terms of botanical treatments of S. buttleri providing systematic details I see there are three works of interest available online -
● Materials For A Flora Of Turkey XXXVII: Labiatae, Plumbaginaceae, Plantaginaceae
● Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, vol. 7
● Türkiye’de Yetişen Stachys L. (Lamiaceae) Cinsine Ait Fragilicaulis R.Bhattacharjee Seksiyonunun Taksonomik Revizyonu Ve Moleküler Filogenetik Analizi / Doktora Tezi / Özal Güner, Mart 2016
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