Myrrhinium atropurpureum Schott
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Authority
Landrum, Leslie R. 1986. Campomanesia, Pimenta, Blepharocalyx, Legrandia, Acca, Myrrhinium, and Luma (Myrtaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 45: 1-178. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Myrtaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type. Brazil. Schott s.n. (holotype, BP; NY neg. 11087 of holotype).
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Description
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Species Description - Shrub or small tree up to ca. 6 m high; hairs simple, unicellular, whitish, ca. 0.1-0.5 mm long; young twigs moderately pubescent to glabrous, the bark grey to dark reddish-brown, slightly lustrous or not. Leaves elliptic, elliptic ovate, elliptic-lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, or oblanceolate, 2-7 cm long, 0.7-3.3 cm wide, 1.7-8 times as long as wide, glabrous to sparsely and minutely strigose, the venation brochidodromous; apex obtuse, rounded, acute, or acuminate, often with an apiculate tip; base acute, acuminate, cuneate, to rounded; petiole 1-3 mm long, 0.5-1 mm thick, shallowly channeled to nearly flat above, glabrous to moderately pubescent (rarely densely pubescent); midvein impressed slightly to flat above, prominent below; lateral and marginal veins indistinct or a few pairs of laterals faintly visible; blades submembranous to coriaceous, drying grey-green or dark reddish-brown, the margin revolute or not. Inflorescence a dichasium of ca. 3-7 flowers, solitary or aggregated in groups of 2 to ca. 8 on short bracteate shoots, the solitary dichasia and shoots mainly bom on mature twigs or branches, the inflorescence essentially glabrous except for the ciliate bracteoles and Calyx-lobes, each segment of the dichasia ca. 1-5 mm long, the lower flowers sometimes aborted; bracteoles ovate, ca. 1 mm long; Calyx-lobes four, hemiorbicular to scarcely differentiated, concave, up to ca. 1 mm long; petals four, red, pink, or purplish, suborbicular to oblong, 3.5-5 mm long, strongly glandular, somewhat fleshy when fresh, sometimes bearing one to a few erect, setose appendages in their axils; hypanthium obovoid to the summit of the ovary, dilated beyond, ca. 1-2 mm long, sometimes shiny when dry; disk ca. 1 mm across, glabrous; stamens 4-8, red, twice folded in the bud just before anthesis, at anthesis stiff, 1.5-2 cm long, the immature stamens erect, with anthers longer than the filaments; anthers 1-1.5 mm long; style red, 2-2.7 cm long; ovary 2-locular; ovules 5-14 per locule, biseriate, reflexed. Fruit white or dark purple-black at maturity, subglobose, ca. 5 mm long. Seeds usually 1-4, more or less reniform, ca. 4 mm long, the center dark, soft (when wet), the outer C-shaped portion relatively hard, lustrous, pale. Embryo white or yellowish, the cotyledons making up about ½ the length. I know of no published observations on floral visitors of Myrrhinium but I hypothesize that birds are important pollinators, as they seem to be in Acca. The petals of Myrrhinium may serve as an attractant because they change color slightly (from red to purplish) and become sweet and fleshy as they mature. The style and filaments are stiff, long, and dark red, as one would expect in a bird pollinated flower. Myrrhinium atropurpureum can be divided into two varieties. The typical variety is a local endemic of the "restinga" vegetation near Rio de Janeiro (Fig. 47A). The second variety, octandrum is widespread in temperate and subtropical South America and along the Andes to Colombia.