Palicourea
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Authority
Maguire, Bassett. 1972. The botany of the Guayana Highland--part IX. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 23: 1-832.
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Family
Rubiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type. Palicourea guianensis Aubl., Hist. Pl. Guian. Fr. 1: 173. pl. 66. 1775.
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Discussion
The following treatment comprises those taxa known from Venezuela, the Guayana Highland, the Guianas, and Amazonas region, but includes also adjacent or other areas whenever the taxonomy or nomenclature is involved.
Most of the species included in Palicourea as here treated possess a swelling, gibbosity, or enlarged curvature at the base of the corolla, together with a ring of hairs on the interior of the corolla tube near its base, and the corollas are generally yellow, orange, red, purple, or blue combined with a rachis and branches of the inflorescence usually of bright or vivid coloring. In general, such a combination of characters serves to delimit the genus from Psychotria, although it is admitted that some species at present placed in Palicourea are at variance with the above mentioned characters, and have either white corollas or only slightly or not at all swollen corolla bases, or may show such incongruities as pubescent interiors of the corolla tube half way up instead of near the base. It would be well nigh impossible to draw an arbitrary line between Psychotria and Palicourea in view of a number of intermediate taxa which exist, but the generic separation of the two may be justified by the fact that more than ninety percent of the taxa possess the salient characters above mentioned which serve to distinguish Palicourea.