Miconia diegogomezii Kriebel & Almeda

Description

Description Author and Date: Ricardo Kriebel and Frank Almeda, as based on the original description.

Type: COSTA RICA. PUNTARENAS: Parque Nacional Isla del Coco, mirador, 5º32'40"N 87º03'20" W, 13 June 1994, E. Lépiz 347 (Holotype: INB; Isotypes: CAS, CR, MO [not seen]). (Miconia sp. B in Trusty et al., 2006).

Description: Shrub or small tree, 3--5 m tall; the uppermost quadrisulcate internodes, vegetative buds, adaxial surface of the petioles, elevated primary and secondary veins on abaxial foliar surfaces, and inflorescence branches moderately to sparsely beset with a varying mixture of irregularly roughened hairs, asperous-headed hairs, and lepidote hairs (rarely just lepidote), becoming glabrescent with age. Leaves of a pair equal to somewhat unequal in length; petioles 1--3.6 cm, the apex adaxially setulose; blade 8--19.5 x 2.9--8 cm, subcoriaceous, narrowly elliptic, elliptic or broadly elliptic, apex acuminate, base acute to cuneate, margin entire to inconspicuously denticulate, 3-nerved (excluding the inframarginal ill-defined pair), the adaxial surface glabrous except for a sparse lepidote indument on the sunken primary and secondary veins, the actual surface abaxially sparsely lepidote and puberulent with asperous-headed or variously roughened hairs, the higher order veins finely reticulate. Inflorescence a terminal multiflowered panicle, 8--11 cm long, branched at or near the base, the main inflorescence rachis nodes generally setulose; bracts and bracteoles 0.25--2.5 mm long, linear to linear-oblong, early deciduous. Flowers 5-(-6)merous, subsessile, on pedicels up to 0.5 mm. Hypanthia (at anthesis) 1 mm to the torus, broadly campanulate, sparsely and deciduously lepidote. Calyx tube ca. 0.25 mm long; calyx lobes 0.1--0.25 mm long, semicircular to broadly undulate; calyx teeth 0.1--0.25 mm long, triangular. Petals 0.5-1 mm long and 1--1.25 mm wide distally, obovate, clawed, white, drying yellow, apically emarginate, erose. Stamens 10(-12), isomorphic; filaments ca. 1.5 mm long, glabrous, complanate; anthers 0.5 mm long and 0.5 mm wide distally, cuneate, yellow, quadrate with markedly acute and pointed corners, 4-celled, the pores somewhat ventrally inclined, with the two dorsal cells positioned slightly higher than the two ventral cells, the septum protruding for ca. 0.2 mm beyond the pores, the connective prolonged for 0.4 mm below the thecae into a knob or flaplike dorsal appendage and a bilobed ventral appendage. Ovary (at anthesis) 1/2 inferior, 3-locular, apically costulate and with a low collar 0.1 mm high, glabrous. Style erect, glabrous, 1.5 mm long; stigma capitellate. Berry 2 x 2 mm when dry, blue at maturity; seeds 0.5 mm, yellowish, ovoid, the testa muriculate.

Habitat and Distribution: Endemic to Parque Nacional Isla del Coco, Costa Rica, 50-500 m

Phenology: Collected in flower and fruit from June to August.

Etymology: The specific epithet is dedicated to the late Luis Diego Gomez (1944-2009), a pioneers of floristic studies in the Isla del Coco and Costa Rica in general.

Taxonomy and Systematics: Miconia diegogomezii is readily recognized by it's indument of asperous-headed hairs on vegetative buds and primary and secondary veins on the abaxial foliar surfaces, 3-nerved leaf blades that are somewhat bullate adaxially and thinly reticulate abaxially, inflorescences with setulose nodes, small 5-merous flowers, 4-celled somewhat superposed quadrate anther thecae that are dehiscent by 4 pores, markedly acute and pointed corners of the quadrate anthers cells, the latter with the septum equal or protruding beyond the pores, and it's blue berries. This species was first collected by Alban Stewart on a California Academy of Sciences expedition to the Galapagos Islands in 1905-1906. Miconia diegogomezii comes out in a polytomy with some species of section Cremanium including M. theizans based on ITS and plastid sequence data (F. Michelangeli pers. com., 2012; Trusty et al., 2012). Miconia theizans belongs to a large polymorphic complex that ranges from Costa Rica south to Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil and the Greater Antilles. Miconia theizans (Bonpl.) Cogn. was first described by Bonpland as a Melastoma (1807), then transferred to Miconia by Cogniaux (1887) who divided this widespread species into two subspecies and 17 varieties based on modal differences in leaf size and texture. This variable species complex is united by the consistently small flowers, 4-celled anther thecae with 4 ventrally inclined pores, and small blue berries. Miconia diegogomezii is here recognized as distinct from M. theizans on the basis of anther morphology. In M. diegogomezii, the septum is equal in length or protruding beyond the pores and the perimeter of the anther thecae is evidently acute and pointed on the corners whereas in M. theizans the septum is not protruding, and the anther thecae are not evidently triangular nor pointed on the corners. There is no other species of the Miconia theizans complex on Cocos Island where M. diegogomezii is an endemic

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