Psychotria deflexa DC. subsp. deflexa

  • Authority

    Maguire, Bassett. 1972. The botany of the Guayana Highland--part IX. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 23: 1-832.

  • Family

    Rubiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Psychotria deflexa DC. subsp. deflexa

  • Description

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    Distribution and Ecology - Distribution. Mexico, Central America, West Indies (Cuba, Hispaniola, Porto Rico, Trinidad) and South America (Guianas, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia).

  • Discussion

    Psychotria deflexa DC., Prodr. 4: 510. 1830.

    Psychotria patens of auth., not Sw.

    Psychotria flexuosa of auth., not Willd.

    Type. Guiana Gallica, Patris.

    This taxon has been confused previously with the West Indian Psychotria patens Sw., originally described from Jamaica. Unlike the Jamaican plants, which have the interior of the corolla completely glabrous, those outside of Jamaica in other parts of the West Indies, Central America, Mexico, and South America, have the upper half of the corolla tube pubescent within.

    The West Indian material separates into another taxon endemic to the Oriente of Cuba with elongated, salverform, instead of infundibuliform, corollas measuring 5-6.5 or more mm long, with the inflorescence compactly flowered at the ends of the axes, and with short stipules 1-3 (-4.5) mm long. In the more widespread taxon distributed in tropical America, the infundibuliform corollas are usually 4-4.2 mm long with puberulent hypanthium, rachis, and inflorescence branches, more or less puberulent exterior of the corolla, varying to glabrous without, and with the lateral axes of the inflorescence once forked with a divergent fork at the end of the branch, resulting in unilaterally arranged flowers secund on an elongated axis at right angles to the main axis with a solitary central flower at the forks. In Brazil and the Venezuelan Guayana another variation is found with shorter stipular teeth with the flowers somewhat more aggregate on short lateral axes as in the Cuban variation.

    In the Jamaican P. patens the flowers are subtended by elongated ligulate or subulate bracts which exceed the calyx, whereas in the variations of P. deflexa, which have previously passed as P. patens, the bracts are usually of a more ovate-triangular shape and shorter than the hypanthium or calyx. In their Flora of Jamaica, Fawcett & Rendle correctly state that the corolla tube of Psychotria patens is “glabrous within” for the Jamaica species (Flora of Jamaica vol. 7, part 5: 104. 1936). Bremekamp, on the other hand, described the interior of the corolla of “Psychotria patens” as “in the middle hairy” (Rubiaceae in Pulle, Flora of Suriname 4(1): 272. 1934), which fits the situation existing in P. deflexa.

  • Distribution

    Distribution. Mexico, Central America, West Indies (Cuba, Hispaniola, Porto Rico, Trinidad) and South America (Guianas, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia).

    Mexico North America| Central America| West Indies| Cuba South America| West Indies| Puerto Rico South America| Trinidad and Tobago South America| South America| Guyana South America| Venezuela South America| Colombia South America| Brazil South America| Bolivia South America|