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Family:

Ericaceae (Magnoliophyta)

Primary Citation:

Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 60: 100. 1933

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Type Specimens:

Specimen 1: Isotype -- R. W. Pearce

Common Names:

joyapa

Description:

Description: Erect shrub 1-1.5 m tall; mature stems terete, glabrous to sparsely hispid-hirsute with basally swollen hairs to 3 mm long; bark reddish-brown, thin, cracking in strips; twigs subterete, weakly puberulent with white hairs (also hispid-hirsute with ± straight, ascending to spreading, basally swollen, eglandular hairs to 2.5 mm long); buds spherical to oblong, 2.5-3.5 mm long, scales broadly ovate, ciliate. Leaves coriaceous with blade surface flat (slightly concave), broadly ovate, oblong or suborbicular, (0.7-)1.5-2 x (-0.5)1-2 cm, base rounded and subcordate, apex acute to rounded and conspicuously terminating in a blunt mucro to 2 mm long, margin conspicuously and coarsely crenate-serrate with each tooth terminating in a deciduous setose hair, glabrous (with a few short, eglandular, setose hairs along midrib beneath); midrib, lateral nerves (2-3 per side), and reticulate veinlets prominent and conspicuously raised on both surfaces; petioles subterete, shallowly flattened above, 1-2 mm long, glabrous, reddish-brown. Inflorescences clustered at branch tips, axillary, racemose, 10-20-flowered; rachis subterete, bluntly angled, 3.5-6 cm long, surrounded at base by a series of ovate to oblong, striate, glabrous, ciliate bracts to 3 mm long, densely white puberulent (also weakly hirsute with straight to crisped, ferruginous, minutely gland-tipped hairs to 1.5 mm long); pedicels subterete, thin, (4-)9-13 mm long, densely puberulent and also moderately hirsute with straight to crisped, ferruginous, minutely (and ± deciduously) gland-tipped hairs to 1.5 mm long; bracteoles located near base, membranous, striate, ovate and long-acicular, ca. 3 x 1 mm, acuminate to ovate-acuminate, glabrous to weakly puberulent, ciliolate, marginally glandular-fimbriate; floral bract membranaceous, striate, ovate to elliptic, (4-)5-6 x 3-4 mm long, acute, glabrous, ciliate, marginally glandular-fimbriate. Flowers with calyx 3.5-6 mm long, lobes ovate, (3-)4-4.5 x (1.5-)2-2.2 mm, acuminate, glabrous or puberulent, ciliate; corolla urceolate to cylindric-urceolate, apparently 5-angled, 5-8 x 4.5-5 mm, glabrous without but weakly short-pilose within, rose-red when fresh, lobes ovate, 1-2.5 mm long, obtuse; stamens 3.5-4.5 mm long; filaments (2.5-)3.5-4 mm long, moderately to densely short-pilose; anthers 1-1.5 mm long, awns conspicuous; ovary densely short-canescent; style 3-4.3 mm long, short-pilose along entire length. Fruiting calyx not seen.

Distribution: Southern Ecuador and northern Peru, where it is found in páramo thickets, shrubby woodlands, and humid elfin forest at elevations of 3140-3700 m. Flowering and fruiting apparently throughout the year. Rare and probably endangered.

Type: Ecuador, Andes of Ecuador, ca. 3700 m, without exact locality or date, Pearce s.n. (holotype, K, photo NY neg. 9924, frag. NY).

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Gaultheria megalodonta A.C.Sm.: [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.