Macleania bullata Yeo

  • Family

    Ericaceae (Magnoliophyta)

  • Scientific Name

    Macleania bullata Yeo

  • Primary Citation

    Baileya 15: 41. 1967

  • Type Specimens

    Specimen 1: Holotype -- W. H. Camp E1737, verif. P. F. Yeo, 1967

  • Common Names

    chupa quinde

  • Description

    Description: Terrestrial or epiphytic shrub with branches to 3 m long, often arising from a lignotuber, nearly entire plant (corolla throat within excepted) glabrous but stems, twigs, leaves, inflorescence, and floral parts provided with short, stout, multicellular, reddish-brown glandular fimbriae, these sometimes very dense; stem terete to subterete, rarely puberulous with minute pale hairs, glabrate; twigs subterete, complanate and bluntly angled, ribbed, nitid. Leaves coriaceous, often bullate, ovate to elliptic-ovate, 3-8(-11.5) x 1.5-4(-6) cm, base acute to broadly cuneate-attenuate or rounded and short-attenuate, apex acuminate with apex itself acute or obtuse, margin entire, essentially glabrous, lower surface drying much paler than upper; 5-7-plinerved, midrib thickened and raised in the proximal 1-3 cm then strongly impressed distally above, raised beneath, lateral nerves strongly impressed above and prominent beneath, reticulate veinlets plane to slightly raised above, obscure beneath; petiole subterete, flattened and winged above, stout, 1-3 mm long. Inflorescences axillary, fasciculate, 1-5-flowered, surrounded at base by numerous, imbricate, ovate, acuminate bracts to 2.5 mm long; floral bract ovate or deltate, rounded to acuminate, 1-3 x ca. 2 mm; pedicel subterete, striate, 7-15(-27) mm long; bracteoles basal, similar to floral bract but ca. 1.5 mm long. Flowers with calyx continuous with pedicel, 7-11 mm long; hypanthium oblong-obconic, winged to sinuses, 4.5-7.5 mm long, the base gradually narrowed, the wings decurrent onto pedicel, very narrow distally, and not protruding beyond the limb margin, 0.5-1 mm wide near base of hypanthium; limb campanulate-spreading, 2-3 mm long; lobes ± apiculate to deltate, acuminate, 0.5-1 mm long; sinuses broadly canaliculate to flat; corolla thin-carnose, tubular, subterete to broadly pentagonal, 32-46 mm long and ca. 6 mm diam., the lobes spreading, oblong-ovate, acute, ca. 3 mm long, densely white- to reddish pilose within at throat; stamen 10-14 mm long; filaments connate into a tube 4-6 mm long; anthers 9-11 mm long; thecae 4-7 mm long; tubules fused into one (although sometimes alternate anthers show vestiges of a septum), 3-4 mm long, dehiscing by clefts 2-3.7 mm long; style exserted. Berry spherical, translucent white, 10-15 mm diam.

    Distribution: Colombia and Ecuador; premontane to montane moist and rainforest, at (951-)1600-2900 m altitude.

    Type: Ecuador. Pichincha: Quito-Santo Domingo de los Colorados old rd, 1830 m, 15 Jan 1945 (fl), Camp E-1737 (holotype, NY, photo NY neg. 9983; isotypes, F, GH, K, MO, P, US).

    Uses: The berry is very juicy but insipid (personal experience).

    Cultivated: ABG, E, NCSC, NY.

  • Floras and Monographs

    Macleania bullata Yeo: [Article] 1967. Baileya. 15: 41.