Taxon Profile:

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Family:

Melastomataceae (Magnoliophyta)

Primary Citation:

Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 72: 478. 1945

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Type Specimens:

Specimen 1: Type -- J. Cuatrecasas

Description:

Description Author and Date: Frank Almeda, based on Almeda, F. (2009). Melastomataceae. In: G. Davidse, M. Sousa-Sânchez, S. Knapp, & F. Chiang (eds.), Flora Mesoamericana: Cucurbitaceae a Polemoniaceae. 4(1): 164-338.

Type: Holotype: Colombia, Cuatrecasas 16534 (NY!).

Description: Shrubs 1-2(-5) m tall, the branchlets, formicaria, petioles, inflorescences, and hypanthia covered with smooth (often in part gland-tipped) hairs 2-6 mm long and a sparse to moderate caducous ground layer of minute appressed glandular hairs; the inflated ellipsoid formicaria 0.7-1.1 cm long, paired just below the branchlet nodes. Leaf blades (5-)7-9-nerved, broadly ovate to elliptic-ovate, 12-25 cm long, 6.2-16.5 cm wide, above moderately setose with smooth (in part gland-tipped) hairs 1.5-3 mm long and a concentration of short distally forked or gland-tipped hairs (mostly 0.5 mm long) restricted to the channel created by the median vein, below sparsely setose on the primary and higher order veins with an inconspicuous understory of minute glandular hairs on and between the elevated veins, apex short-acuminate, base broadly rounded to cordate, the margin crenulate. Inflorescence a few-flowered cyme 1 cm long borne in opposite upper leaf axils; flowers 4-merous, pedicels 0.5-1 mm long, the persistent setose-subulate bracteoles 2-5 mm long. Hypanthia constricted distally into a short neck (in fruit); calyx lobes triangular, 0.5 X 0.7 mm (excluding terminal setae), free portions of the sparsely setose subulate exterior teeth 1-1.5 mm long (fruiting hypanthia), the torus within glabrous. Petals white, glabrous, oblong-obovate, 2-3 X 1-1.5 mm. Filaments 2.5 mm long; anther sacs yellow, 2.5-3 mm long with a dorsally inclined pore; connective neither prolonged nor appendaged. Ovary 4-locular, completely inferior, the apex glabrous, berry 7-9 mm diam, bluish-purple when ripe. Seeds copiously papillate, ovoid in outline, dolabriform in profile view, 0.5 mm long.

Habitat and Distribution: Widespread but local in rain forest. 0-200 (-500). Also in Colombia and northern Ecuador. BELIZE (Dwyer & Spellman 1981: 207); GUATEMALA (Contreras 9958, CAS); HONDURAS (Brant & Hazlett 2865, CAS); NICARAGUA (Riviere 320, MO); COSTA RICA (Grayum & Jacobs 5348, CAS); PANAMA (Almeda et al. 6503, CAS).

Taxonomy and Systematics: This species is very similar to and has frequently been confused with Clidemia tococoidea (DC.) Gleason. The latter differs in having a densely resinous-glandular lower leaf surface with finely and evenly reticulate veinlets and hypanthia that lack setae for the lower third of their length (fide Wurdack, 1960:241). Variation in these characters is in need of study.

Notes: [Description based only on Mesoamerican specimens.]