Taxon Details: Pernettya hirta (Willd.) Sleumer
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Family:

Ericaceae (Magnoliophyta)
Scientific Name:

Pernettya hirta (Willd.) Sleumer
Primary Citation:

Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 78: 478. 1959
Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.
Description:

Description: Low-growing shrub to 10 cm tall with branches decumbent or semiprostrate and rooting, bisexual; twigs subterete, laxly grayish-white puberulent and densely hirsute-setulose with basally swollen, straight, multicellular, eglandular, hairs 1-3.2 mm long which are purplish or reddish-brown becoming grayish. Leaves subcoriaceous, broadly to narrowly elliptic or oblong-elliptic, (6-)10-17 x (4-)5-8(-9) mm, base rounded to cuneate, apex acute, margin somewhat thickened and revolute, distally crenate-serrulate with 10-15 indistinct teeth per side these each bristle-tipped with multicellular hairs (as on twigs) to 3 mm long, densely hirsute-setose on both surfaces as twigs, drying olive-green above and purplish-brown beneath; midrib plane to slightly impressed above, raised and prominent beneath, secondary veins impressed above and raised beneath but obscure; petiole 1-2 mm long, hirsute-setose as twigs. Flowers with pedicels (3-)6-9 mm long, puberulent and setose with crisped hairs, glabrate; bracts 4-6 near base of the pedicel and 1-3 scattered nearly to the apex, narrowly to broadly ovate, 1.5-2 mm long, margin ciliate; calyx lobes (4-)5, ovate, 2.5-3 mm long, acute to acuminate, glabrous but margin setulose along entire length with reddish hairs and distally white ciliate; corolla urceolate, (4-)5-6 x 5-6 mm, white or pinkish becoming reddish, lobes (4-)5, ca. 1-1.3 mm long; stamens (8-)10, filaments glabrous, ca. 2 mm long; ovary globose, glabrous, minutely wrinkled. Berry subglobose, 8-9 mm in diam., glabrous, dark blue-black when mature.

Distribution: Endemic to Colombia (Dept. of Cundinamarca), and found in páramo and subpáramo, often with mosses along wet depressions, at elevations of 3150-3700 m; extremely rare. Flowering: Aug-Jan; fruiting: Aug-Apr, Dec.

Type: A specimen cultivated in the Berlin Botanical Garden from seed sent by Humboldt from Colombia, fr, (holotype, B-Willd. no. 8267).

Cultivated: E (?).

Conservation status: Rare and endangered.

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Pernettya hirta (Willd.) Sleumer: [Article] Luteyn, James L., et al. 1995. Ericaceae, Part II. The Superior-Ovaried Genera (Monotropoideae, Pyroloideae, Rhododendroideae, and Vaccinioideae P.P.). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 66: 560.