Monographs Details:
Authority:
Renner, Susanne S. 1989. Systematic studies in the Melastomataceae Bellucia, Loreya and Macairea. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 50: 1-112.
Renner, Susanne S. 1989. Systematic studies in the Melastomataceae Bellucia, Loreya and Macairea. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 50: 1-112.
Family:
Melastomataceae
Melastomataceae
Description:
Species Description - Small or medium-sized trees, to 25 (rarely 30) m high or shrubs; trunk cylindrical; bark scaly, flaky, with longitudinal fissures or smooth. Leaves opposite, simple, petiolate, large, coriaceous and glossy green when fresh, drying brown above, glaucous below, 3-5-pli-nerved, the inner pair of lateral primary veins departing 0.5-3 cm above the blade base, margin entire or serrulate (when young), lower leaf surface pilose, villose, or sublanate with smooth, thin, sometimes slightly curled trichomes or both surfaces glabrous. Inflorescences 2-3-branched cymes or congested clusters of few flowers, rarely one, in the axils of existing leaves, on the branches below the existing leaves, or on the trunk. Flowers hermaphroditic, 5-8-merous; hypanthium subglobose; calyx a calyptra, sphtting open in an irregular semicircle and drying as a hyaline membrane, often persistent on the limb after anthesis, or calyx dehiscing regularly into triangular lobes, lobes valvate in bud, erect and persistent after anthesis, or calyx limb truncate (in B. huberi); petals obovate with a claw, apically tmncate or slightly emarginate, fleshy, adaxially with two longitudinal and one transversal callus ridge, spreading at anthesis, completely white or white inside and pink-flushed outside; stamens twice as many as the petals, isomorphic, glabrous, laterally compressed, anther and filament of about equal length; anthers thick, with two slightly introrse pores, the connective not prolonged but fleshy, dorsi-basally yellow; ovary completely inferior and fused with the hypanthium wall, 10-14(-15)-locular; style glabrous, thick, terete, straight or slightly sigmoid, longer than the stamens; stigma capitate and 10-16-lobed. Fruit a many-seeded, semi-globose, glabrous or rarely hirsute, greenish-yellow berry. Seeds minute, 0.5-1 mm long, more or less ovoid, with a small, subterminal hilum; testa tuberculate.
Species Description - Small or medium-sized trees, to 25 (rarely 30) m high or shrubs; trunk cylindrical; bark scaly, flaky, with longitudinal fissures or smooth. Leaves opposite, simple, petiolate, large, coriaceous and glossy green when fresh, drying brown above, glaucous below, 3-5-pli-nerved, the inner pair of lateral primary veins departing 0.5-3 cm above the blade base, margin entire or serrulate (when young), lower leaf surface pilose, villose, or sublanate with smooth, thin, sometimes slightly curled trichomes or both surfaces glabrous. Inflorescences 2-3-branched cymes or congested clusters of few flowers, rarely one, in the axils of existing leaves, on the branches below the existing leaves, or on the trunk. Flowers hermaphroditic, 5-8-merous; hypanthium subglobose; calyx a calyptra, sphtting open in an irregular semicircle and drying as a hyaline membrane, often persistent on the limb after anthesis, or calyx dehiscing regularly into triangular lobes, lobes valvate in bud, erect and persistent after anthesis, or calyx limb truncate (in B. huberi); petals obovate with a claw, apically tmncate or slightly emarginate, fleshy, adaxially with two longitudinal and one transversal callus ridge, spreading at anthesis, completely white or white inside and pink-flushed outside; stamens twice as many as the petals, isomorphic, glabrous, laterally compressed, anther and filament of about equal length; anthers thick, with two slightly introrse pores, the connective not prolonged but fleshy, dorsi-basally yellow; ovary completely inferior and fused with the hypanthium wall, 10-14(-15)-locular; style glabrous, thick, terete, straight or slightly sigmoid, longer than the stamens; stigma capitate and 10-16-lobed. Fruit a many-seeded, semi-globose, glabrous or rarely hirsute, greenish-yellow berry. Seeds minute, 0.5-1 mm long, more or less ovoid, with a small, subterminal hilum; testa tuberculate.
Discussion:
Type: Bellucia grossularioides (L.) Triana.
Webera J. F. Gmelin, Syst. nat. 2(1): 776, 820. Sep-Nov 1791, non Schreber, May 1791, nee Hedwig, 1801. Type: Webera quinquenervia (Aublet) J. F. Gmelin {Blakea quinquenervia Aublet).
Apatitia Desvaux in Hamilton, Prodr. pl. Ind. occid. 42. 1825. Type: Apatitia blakeoides Desvaux.
Axinanthera Karsten, Linnaea 30: 157. Post Apr 1859. Type: Axinanthera macrophylla Karsten.
A neotropical genus of seven species, ranging from southem Mexico through Central America to northern Bolivia and east through the Guianas to Maranhao and Bahia in Brazil; lowlands to 1600 m.