Clidemia clandestina Almeda

  • Family

    Melastomataceae (Magnoliophyta)

  • Scientific Name

    Clidemia clandestina Almeda

  • Primary Citation

    Novon 13: 163. 2003

  • Type Specimens

    Specimen 1: Isotype -- F. Almeda 5907, verif. F. Almeda, 2003

  • 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: Panama, Almeda et al. 5907 (CAS!)

    Description: Erect or scandent terrestrial shrub 1-2.5 m tall or dangling epiphyte. Internodes ± quadrate becoming rounded with age. Young vegetative buds, pedicels and hypanthia minutely and caducously brown lepidote. Leaves of a pair ± equal in length or somewhat unequal but never markedly so; blades 5.7-14 cm long and 3-7.3 cm wide, elliptic sometimes varying to elliptic-ovate, apex acuminate to caudate-acuminate, base obtuse to rounded, margin entire to inconspicuously ciliate-serrulate, 3-5-plinerved, glabrous adaxially and moderately glandular-punctate (but sometimes superficially appearing lepidote) abaxially on the actual surface with hair-tuft domatia bearing hairs 0.5-1 mm long along the basal portion of the primary veins and where the innermost primaries diverge from the median veins at the blade base. Inflorescence a terminal modified dichasium 3-8.5 cm long, becoming pseudolateral with elongation of lateral branches, sometimes divaricately branched from the base; bracts and bracteoles subulate to narrowly triangular, 0.5-1 mm long and about 0.25 mm wide at the base. Flowers 5-merous on pedicels 0.5-1 mm long. Calyx lobes 0.25 x 0.5 mm, bluntly triangular, hyaline and typically obscured by the exterior teeth; calyx teeth linear to subulate, 0.25-0.5 mm long. Petals copiously covered with minute papillae on both surfaces, dark red but drying maroon-black, obovate, erect and concave adaxially at anthesis, 1 mm long and 1 mm wide. Filaments glabrous, 1 mm long; anthers 0.25 mm long and 0.25 mm wide, pale yellow flushed with crimson-maroon basally, rounded at the apex with a ventrally inclined pore; connective crimson-maroon but drying purple-black, thickened at the base of the anther sac but not conspicuously prolonged or appendaged. Ovary 3-locular, completely inferior, apex glabrous. Berry maroon when immature but turning purple-black when ripe, 4-5 x 4-5 mm when dry, Seeds ovoid to obovoid in outline, 1 mm long, bluntly and complexly tuberculate on the convex face.

    Habitat and Distribution: Rain forests, cloud forests, and elfin woodland. 700-1400 m. Also in Colombia and Ecuador. COSTA RICA (Herrera 1263, CR); PANAMA (Almeda et al. 7565, CAS).

    Notes: [Description based only on Mesoamerican specimens.]

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