Capsicum pereirae
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| Barboza & Bianch. |
Under the name Capsicum pereirae , a new wild species of the genus Paprika ( Capsicum ) was described in 2005 . It occurs in eastern Brazil in humid and fertile environments.
description
Habit and leaves
Capsicum pereirae is a slightly branched shrub that reaches heights of between (0.5) 0.8 and 2 (3) meters. The stem axis lignifies near the root and forms thickened, purple nodes at the branches and leaf bases .
The leathery leaves appearing in pairs but standing individually in the shoot branches are 3 to 5.5 (10) times longer than wide, elliptical to narrowly elliptical and the edge is slightly wavy. The leaves are between (6.1) 9 and 15 (19) cm long and between 2 and 2.4 (4.5) cm wide. The leaf stalks are 0.5 to 1 (1.5) cm in length. The leaves have a leathery texture and are slightly shiny on both sides.
blossom
The flowers arise in the branch branches and occur individually or in groups of two to three flowers. The flower stalks are slightly curved and between 1.5 and 2.2 cm long. The hermaphroditic, almost radially symmetrical flowers are five-fold. The green sepals are fused together to form a 1.5 to 2 (4) mm long calyx, which towers above the ovary, has no or five weak teeth, on the edge there are short trichomes in one row . The star-shaped flowers of five petals are white, with bicolored flowers spots in the cup-side half. The shape of the petals is almost triangular, the edge is folded inwards, at the tip clearly hooded. The flower spots are greenish-yellow on the inside of the flower, purple on the outside, both areas are separated from each other by white stripes. The open flower has a diameter of 8 to 19 mm and a length of 9 to 10 mm. The stamens are 3 to 4 (5) mm long, the whitish stamens are 1.8 to 2.1 (3) mm in size. The gynoeceum is slightly curved, (3.7) 4 to 6 (7) mm in size. The two carpels are a top permanent ovary grown.
Fruit and seeds
The fruits are round, flattened berries and (6) 8 to 9 mm × 7 to 10 mm in size. They grow upright on the fruit stalks that are (2) 2.3 to 2.8 (3.5) mm long. When ripe, the color changes from green to yellowish-green, the fruits are no longer firmly attached to the calyx and easily fall to the ground. In each fruit there are (three) five to 20 brownish black seeds with a size of 3 to 3.7 mm × 2.5 to 2.4 mm.
Differentiation from other species
The species is part of a common group with other species that grow on the eastern coast of Brazil. Like C. mirabile , C. schottianum and C. hunzikerianum , for example, C. pereirae also has violet and greenish-yellow flower spots on the petals. The leathery and shiny leaves distinguish C. pereirae from other species of the genus. The shape of the flower stalks, the upright flowers and the calyx with nonexistent or only weak teeth indicate a close relationship to C. flexuosum . Due to the similarities in the properties of calyx and corolla, a similarity to C. schottianum is assumed.
In contrast to all domesticated Capsicum species, C. pereirae has 13 instead of 12 pairs of chromosomes . Investigations on wild and semi-wild Brazilian Capsicum species showed that the number of species with 13 chromosome pairs is significantly higher than initially assumed. These results challenged some of the previously unproven assumptions about the evolutionary history of the Capsicum genus . For example, it has been suggested that the 13th chromosome pair were created by mechanisms such as centric fission . However, since no features that indicate centric fission have been found on the remaining 12 “original” chromosome pairs, this theory can be considered incorrect. Rather, it now turns out to be more likely that the group of species with 13 pairs of chromosomes is the original one and that one pair of chromosomes has been lost in an as yet unexplained manner during the increasing spread to the north. Species with only 12 pairs of chromosomes therefore changed their occurrence, for example through the formation of predominantly red fruits, which are much more hot. Since the climatic conditions remained constant in the original distribution area of southeastern Brazil, the species with 13 chromosome pairs were able to survive there, while further north, the species with 12 chromosome pairs prevailed.
etymology
The species was named after its collector, the Brazilian botanist Edmundo Pereira (* 1914, † 1986).
Occurrence
Plants of the species C. pereirae were found in the Brazilian states of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais at an altitude between 1000 and 1600 meters above sea level. The location is mostly in the shade, in forests between palm trees and ferns of the Cyatheaceae family and in moist depressions and fertile valleys.
literature
- GE Barboza and LDB Bianchetti: Three New Species of Capsicum (Solanaceae) and a Key to the Wild Species from Brazil . In: Systematic Botany , 30 (4), The American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Tallahassee, USA 2005, pp. 863-871.
- MT Pozzobon, MT Schifino-Wittmann, LDB Bianchetti: Chromosome numbers in wild and semidomesticated Brazilian Capsicum L. (Solanaceae) species: do x = 12 and x = 13 represent two evolutionary lines? In: Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society . June 2006, 151 (2), pp. 259-269.