Gustavia hubbardiorum S.A.Mori & Cornejo
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Description
Author: Scott A. Mori & Xavier Cornejo
Type: Ecuador. Napo: from Tena to Jatun Sacha before Ishpingo Botanical Garden, near Jatun Sacha Biological Station, 1° 4'S, 77° 38.4', 4.92" W, 400 m alt., X. Cornejo & P. Grefa 8061 (holotype, GUAY; isotypes, K, MO, NY).
Description: Understory trees, 5-15 m tall when flowering, the trunk cylindric to ground, to 35 cm diam. Bark not well-known, images of bark covered with lichens or damaged by cutting. Stems thick, 5-13 mm diam., the leaves aggregated at ends but not in distinct whorls, petioles and petiole scars often not touching; cataphylls present under leaf flush, red. Leaves present at anthesis; petioles hemispherical in cross section, well-defined, 15-60 mm long × 4-8 mm diam., glabrous; blades oblancelate to broadly obovate, 34-77 × 9-18 cm, chartaceous, without punctations, glabrous, the base narrowly cuneate, the margins entire, the apex acuminate; venation eucamptodromous toward base, brochidodromous toward apex, the midrib prominulous adaxially, salient abaxially, glabrous, the secondary veins slightly decurrent, in 31-40 pairs, 1-2 cm apart in middle of blade, plane adaxially, salient abaxially, the secondary veins slightly decurrent, undulate, sometimes bifurcating, the intersecondary veins absent, the tertiary veins percurrent, the higher order veins reticulate. Inflorescences ramiflorous, racemose, with ca. 5 flowers but one at anthesis at a time, the rachis 3-5 cm long, squamose; pedicels abruptly curved upward at anthesis, 3.5-6 cm long, the bract not seen, the 2 opposite bracteoles ca. 2 × 3 mm, inserted at or slightly above middle of pedicel, squamose below, pubescent above bracteoles. Flowers ca. 8 cm diam.; hypanthium at least sometimes 4-costate, ferruginous pubescent; calyx-lobes 4, broadly triangular, 5 × 10-15 mm, fused at bases to form calycine rim; petals 8, erect at anthesis, narrowly ovate to somewhat oblong, ca 80 × 50 mm, pink throughout abaxially, pink distally, white proximally adaxially, densely ferruginous pubescent in bud abaxially; androecium with staminal tube 8-12 mm high, white with hint of yellow, the outermost filaments ca. 15 mm long, white for lower half, pink for upper half, the anthers ca. 3 mm long, yellow; ovary 6-locular, white to gray pubescence covering summit, the trichomes simple, septate, not arranged in a reticulate pattern, the style broadly obconical, 4 mm long, the stigma with 6 stigmatic lines. Fruits globose, truncate at apex, ca. 9 × 11 cm; calycine rim absent but calycine ring persisting as scar, inserted next to androecial scar, the infracalycine zone rounded to base, the supracalycine zone absent, the fruit summit nearly as wide in diam. as fruit diam.; pulp orange at fruit maturity; pericarp rough, woody, ca. 5 mm thick, the exocarp light brown, sometimes tinged with purple, when fresh; pulp orange at fruit maturity. Seeds often flat on one side and rounded on the other, ca. 4 × 4 cm, the seed coat thin (<1 mm thick), with reticulate pattern caused by darker colored veins when fresh, dark brown when dried; aril yellow, annular, surrounding base of funicle.
Common names: Ecuador: paso (Cornejo & Grefa 8060, 8061, Quichua). The Quichua name paso is shared with the Amazonian and commonly cultivated Gustavia macarenensis.
Distribution: Endemic to the Province of Napo from within and in the vicinity of the Jatun Sacha Biological Station.
Ecology: An understory tree of tropical wet forest that persists in pastures and other disturbed areas.
Phenology: Flowers have been collected in Jan and May and immature fruits in Jan.
Pollination: No observations recorded but other species are pollinated by bees (Mori & Boeke, 1987). In addition, the poricidal anthers of this and all other species of the genus indicate that the most common and probably most efficient pollinators are buzz-pollinating bees.
Dispersal: No observations recorded. The fruit has a yellow to golden-yellow, soft pulp similar to that of Gustavia superba which is dispersed by several different mammal species (Sork, 1987).
Predation: The label of Cornejo & Grefa 8060) reports that small curculionid beetles are found within the flowers. Although these beetles may cause incidental pollination, their larvae are most likely predators of this species. Flies and beetles that prey upon the flowers of Gustavia hexapetala and other Lecythidaceae have been reported by Feinstein et al. (2007).
Field characters: Understory, medium-branched trees; leaves large, aggregated at apices of branches; inflorescences ramiflorous, the pedicels squamose below pubescent above bracteoles; the bractoles opposite one another, small; hypanthium 4 costate (this less apparent in some collections than it is in others); calyx with four broadly triangular lobes; petals erect at anthesis, pink throughout abaxially; ovary summit with dense pubescence, the trichomes not in a reticulate pattern; fruits with operculum nearly as wide in diameter as the fruit diameter, the pericarp brown, sometimes tinged with purple; seeds with annular, short, yellow aril. Note that the pubescence at the summit of the ovary covers the entire summit and, thus, lacks the reticulate appearance of the trichome arrangement of many species of
Taxonomic notes: In large leaves, the secondary veins are 1.5-2.5 cm apart in the middle of the leaf blade between the midrib and the margin of the blade; in one collection (Cornejo & Grefa 8061 at NY), however, they are only 1 cm apart but the leaves of this sheet are smaller than the other leaves measured. The ovary is scored as 6-locular based on the 6 stigmatic lines but this needs to be confirmed by making cross sections of the ovary. Note that the pubescence at the summit of the ovary covers the entire summit and, thus, lacks the reticulate appearance of the trichome arrangement of many other species of Gustavia This species is morphological similar to G. terminaliflora S. A. Mori (known only from the type) but differs from it by its ramiflorous versus terminal inflorescences and petiole versus sessile (the blade tapers to the leaf attachment) leaves.
Uses: Because of its relatively short stature, showy flowers, and ability to grow as a street tree, this species could be planted as an ornamental.
Etymology: This species in named in honor of Anne and Tom Hubbard who have supported The New York Botanical Garden, and science in particular, for most of the years that the senior author has worked there.
Conservation: This species is not well enough known to assign it to an IUCN category.
Source: Based on Mori & Cornejo (accepted for Brittonia)
Last updated: By Scott A. Mori on 03 October 2012.
- Sorry, no descriptions available for this record.
