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Family:

Ericaceae (Magnoliophyta)

Primary Citation:

Nov. Gen. Sp. (Kunth) 3: 279. 1819

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Common Names:

encino roble, flora de pulca, guayavillo, indio desnudo, korúvasi, kurúvasi, madrón, madrona, madrone, madroña, madroño colorado, nuzundu, pách-sich-ách-mixe, urúbasi, ya-hatzii, madroño

Description:

Description: Trees or arborescent shrubs, 4-6 m, often up to 15 m (occasionally said to be taller); bark usually brick red and peeling in large, smooth flakes over most of the larger limbs, ceasing to exfoliate at the base of the trunk on older specimens and eventually retained over most of the oldest parts of the plant, becoming gray, irregularly roughened; twigs of newly emerging shoots usually densely villous, often with a mixture of glandular hairs, fully developed twigs pubescent and/or glandular pubescent, or glabrate to completely glabrous, twig bark soon loosening and exfoliating, older twigs usually smooth, brick-red, or glaucous grayish-red. Leaves pale or bright olive-green or glaucous-green, slightly lighter beneath, blades elliptic or slightly ovate-elliptic, (4-)5-11(-15) x 1.5-4.8(-6) cm, basally tapered, rounded, sub-truncate, or slightly cordate, apically acute or obtuse, the margins smooth or irregularly toothed, rarely slightly spinulose, upper surface glossy-glabrous (when fresh) or pubescent, often densely so toward base of blade and especially along the midrib, lower surface glabrous or more often pubescent, frequently white, tan, or brown woolly, sometimes with a few glandular hairs; petiole 1/4-1/3(-1/2) the length of the blade, vestiture about the same as on the blade, but glandular hairs more dense if present, these straight or curly, drying stiff, up to 1.5 mm long. Inflorescence a terminal cluster of racemes, very variable, from densely clustered or openly-branched, to few-flowered, often showy, axes including pedicels usually with glandular hairs, these sometimes copious and conspicuous. Flowers borne obliquely erect on accrescent pedicels 6-9(-14) mm long, subtended by a reddish or tan-colored accrescent bract 2-3.5 mm long, to 4.9 mm long in fruit, enclosing 2 smaller bracteoles; calyx 1.8-3 mm long (northern material with a blush of pink), the lobes often dorsally pubescent, margins scarious and ciliate or glandular-ciliate; corolla 5.1-6(-7.2) mm long, the larger on rapidly developing, more open and elongated inflorescences, inner surface of tube smooth or sparsely pubescent below the middle; filaments 2.1-3 mm long; anthers about 1.5 mm long, spurs (1/2-)3/4-4/5 the length of the thecae; ovary with up to 10 ovules per locule. Fruit more or less spherical, or slightly turbinate, 7.5-8.8(-9) mm diam. when ripe; seeds 4 or 5 per locule, 1.8-2.5 mm long; chromosome number: 2n=26 (Callan, 1941).

Distribution: Southern New Mexico and W Texas, U.S.A., south in mountainous topography through all the states of Mexico (except Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Yucatán), into Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, at elevations of (325-)2000-3000(-3400) m, at highest elevation in the Sierra Volcánica Transversal crossing southern Mexico. Flowering in Central America and southeastern Mexico November to mid-February, progressively later into April and May in the northernmost localities, rarely during mid-year; fruiting follows after about six weeks.

Local names: Throughout its range Arbutus xalapensis is called madrone (English), madroño (Spanish), less frequently madroña (Spanish), or simply madrón (Spanish). Additional vernacular names: encino roble, flora de pulca, guayavillo, indio desnudo, kurúvasi or korúvasi, madroño colorado, nuzu-ndu, pách-sich-ách-mixe, urúbasi, and ya-hatzii.

Cultivated: E, MO.

Type: Mexico. Veracruz: Near Xalapa, 1260 m, Feb 1804 (fl), Humboldt & Bonpland s.n. (lectotype: designated by Sørensen, 1995, P; Microfiche, IDC 6209, fiche no. 78).

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Arbutus xalapensis (Benth.) Kunth: [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.