Miconia dorsiloba Gleason

  • Family

    Melastomataceae (Magnoliophyta)

  • Scientific Name

    Miconia dorsiloba Gleason

  • Primary Citation

    Brittonia 2: 320. 1937

  • Type Specimens

    Specimen 1: Holotype -- A. F. Skutch 2816

  • 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: Costa Rica, Skutch 2816 (NY!).

    Description: Shrubs or small trees 1.5-6 m tall, the branchlets, petioles, elevated primary leaf veins beneath, and inflorescences densely covered with stalked-stellate hairs. Leaves 5-nerved, oblong-ovate to elliptic-ovate, 10-20(-27) X 4.5-13(-17.5) cm, adaxially sparsely covered with stalked-stellate hairs but becoming glabrate with age, abaxially sparsely to moderately beset with persistent stalked-stellate hairs, apex acuminate, base broadly rounded to cordate, the margin undulate-denticulate; petioles 1-2(-5) cm long. Panicle 8-15 cm long; flowers 5(-6)-merous and sessile, the persistent oblong bracteoles 1.5-3 X 0.5-1 mm. Hypanthia moderately stalked-stellate; calyx hyaline, closed in bud and crowned by a short apiculum but rupturing at anthesis into 5 inconspicuous semicircular or oblong lobes, the subulate exterior teeth 0.5-1 mm long. Petals glabrous, oblong to oblong-obovate, 1.5-3 X 0.75-1 mm. Stamens isomorphic, anthers oblong, yellow, 1-1.5 mm long with a dorsally inclined pore; connective not prolonged but modified dorso-basally into a bluntly rounded deflexed spur ca. 0.25 mm long. Style glabrous, 3-4.5 mm long, stigma barely expanded; ovary 5-locular, 2/3 inferior, apex somewhat fluted and elevated into a minutely glandular-puberulent lobulate collar; berry 4-5 X 4-5 mm, blue-purple at maturity. Seeds narrowly angulate-pyramidate, obscurely granulate to rugulate and vaguely verruculose on the angles, 0.5 mm long.

    Habitat and Distribution: Local and uncommon, rain forest. 0-900 m. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. NICARAGUA (Martinez & Riviere 2119, CAS); COSTA RICA (Skutch 5331, CAS); PANAMA (McPherson 11504, CAS).

    Notes: [Description based only on Mesoamerican specimens.]

  • Floras and Monographs

    Miconia dorsiloba Gleason: [Article] Wurdack, John J. 1967. Plants collected in Ecuador by W. H. Camp. Melastomataceae. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 16: 1-45.