Authority:

Gentry, Alwyn H. 1992. Bignoniaceae--part II (Tribe Tecomeae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 25: 1-370. (Published by NYBG Press)

Family:

Bignoniaceae

Synonyms:

Tecoma acrophylla Urb., Tabebuia rugosa Leonard

Description:

Species Description - Small tree or slender shrub, 2-8 m tall, unbranched or sparsely branched, the branchlets longitudinally wrinkle-ridged, minutely lepidote when young. Leaves 3-foliolate, the leaflets elliptic to oblong-ovate, obovate or oblanceolate, more or less rounded at apex, sometimes retuse or inconspicuously apiculate, gradually narrowed to the cuneate to narrowly subcordate base, the lateral leaflets usually more or less sessile with asymmetric bases, 7-30 cm long, 2.2-17 cm wide, thick coriaceous (thinner when young), the venation plane or somewhat impressed above, intricately raised below, above stalked-lepidote with peculiar stellate-tipped trichomes when young, soon glabrescent, below more or less lepidote along the veins and conspicuously and persistently puberulous with the more or less appressed trichomes filling the network between the ultimate veinlets; petioles thick and short, 0.5-1.5 cm long, more or less minutely puberulous, usually with conspicuous tan-drying lenticels. Inflorescence terminal, often in the dichotomy between two branches, paniculate, often contracted, puberulous with more or less stalked-lepidote stellate-tipped trichomes. Flowers with the calyx tubular-campanulate, irregularly bilabiate, more or less puberulous with the same irregularly fimbriate-tipped stalked stellate-lepidote trichomes as the inflorescence (these sometimes mostly subsessile and the calyx then glandular-lepidote), the trichome tips sometimes mostly broken and the calyx apparently puberulous with simple trichomes, 9-16 mm long, 7-11 mm wide; corolla red or wine-red, narrowly tubular-campanulate, abruptly flaring to the broad lobes, 2.5-5 cm long, the tube 2-3.5 cm long, 0.5-1.2 cm wide at mouth of tube, the lobes 0.5-0.9 cm across, glabrous outside, pilose in floor of throat inside; stamens didynamous, the anther thecae divaricate, 3 mm long; ovary linear, 4 mm long; disk annular-patelliform, 1.5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide. Fruit (juvenile) linear, 7-10 cm long, 5-10 mm wide, densely lepidote in part with more or less stalked trichomes.

Discussion:

This species and closely related T. bullata are very distinctive in their large thick coriaceous leaves with very short thick petioles and strongly intricately raised-reticulate venation beneath. They also have an unusual inflorescence indumentum with long-stalked erose-margined peltate scales. The closest relative to this species pair is T. buchii, which differs in smaller, less coriaceous, erose-margined leaflets and thinner petiole. The Haitian material tends to have larger flowers and more noticeably pubescent inflorescences than Dominican material. Leonard differentiated T. rugosa on account of its smaller flowers and larger leaves and leaflets which are glabrous above. Leaf and flower size are variable and the indumentum of the leaf upper surface is early glabrescent, even when present. It seems inadvisable to differentiate the lowland Dominican Republic collections, which include the type of T. rugosa, from the Haitian populations, including typical T. acrophylla, on the basis of flower size and inflorescence pubescence, since geographically intermediate collections (e.g., Liogier 16253) are intermediate in these characters.

Distribution:

Haiti South America| Dominican Republic South America| Dajabón Dominican Republic South America| El Seibo Dominican Republic South America| La Vega Dominican Republic South America| Samaná Dominican Republic South America| San Cristóbal Dominican Republic South America| Santiago Dominican Republic South America|

Common Names:

pata de cotorra