Coprosma esulcata
| Coprosma esulcata | ||||||||||||
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| Coprosma esulcata | ||||||||||||
| ( F.Br. ) Fosberg |
Esulcata Coprosma is a plant from the genus Coprosma in the family of the Rubiaceae (Rubiaceae). It is endemic to only two islands in the Marquesas Islands in the southern Pacific.
description
Vegetative characteristics
Coprosma esulcata grows as a shrub or small tree that can reach heights of 1.5 to 4 meters. The bark of young twigs is bare.
The cross-opposite leaves on the branches are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The strong petiole has narrow wings and is 0.4 to 1.3 inches long. The simple, thick leathery leaf blade is 6.5 to 13 centimeters long and 2.7 to 6 centimeters wide and elliptical to oblanceolate. The base of the spreader tapers in a wedge shape, the tip of the spreader is pointed and the edge of the spreader is entire. The upper side of the leaf is bare and the underside is hairy along the leaf veins . From each side of the broad central leaf vein, 8 to 18 side veins branch off. Small domatia can be found along the central leaf vein, but they can also be missing. The interpetiolaren stipules resemble the true leaves are 0.3 to 0.8 centimeters long and are about grown-half to four-fifths of its total length to each other. Both the upper and lower sides of the stipules are bare and they have toothed and ciliate leaf margins with reddish brown hair. The upper end of the stipule is blunt and has an appendage.
Generative characteristics
The lateral, triple branched, zymous inflorescences contain 6 to 15 individual flowers. The upper end of the inflorescences is formed by a three-flowered umbel . The lower branches of the inflorescence each have one or two flowers. The sparsely hairy, fine flower stalks are 0.2 to 0.3 centimeters long in female flowers.
The unisexual flowers are radial symmetry and five or six-fold with a double flower envelope . The five or six sepals are fused together like a bell in the male flowers, and about 1 millimeter each of the calyx is about 2 millimeters long, the calyx tube and the calyx teeth. The 0.4 to 0.8 millimeter long calyx is tubular in the female flowers. The five or six petals are fused together in a funnel shape and the corolla tube ends in five or six corolla lobes. In the male flowers, the corolla tube is around 5 millimeters and the corolla lobes about 2 millimeters long, while in the female flowers they reach lengths of 1.8 to 2 millimeters and 1.4 to 1.8 millimeters, respectively. The stamens inserted at the base of the corolla tube are about 0.7 centimeters long. The stylus , 0.9 to 1.1 centimeters long, is divided almost to its base and clearly protrudes from the corolla. The scars are hairy.
The juicy drupes are obovate to elliptical with a length of 0.6 to 0.7 centimeters and a diameter of about 0.3 centimeters. They are colored bright red to reddish orange when ripe. There are permanent calyx teeth at its tip. The fruits each have two stone cores. The stone core is about 0.4 centimeters long and 0.25 to 0.3 centimeters wide, plano-convex and obovate to elliptical in shape. Each stone core houses a single seed.
distribution
The natural range of Coprosma esulcata is on the Marquesas Islands in the southern Pacific . Coprosma esulcata is an endemic that only occurs on the islands of Ua Pou and Nuku Hiva , although the occurrence on Nuku Hiva is only known from a single collection.
Coprosma esulcata thrives at altitudes of 770 to 920 meters. This species grows on steep slopes and along mountain ridges in cloud-shrouded bushland and damp forests. Freycinetia impavida , Metrosideros collina and Pandanus tectorius , among others, grow in these forests .
Taxonomy
It was first described as Psychotria esulcata in 1935 by Forest Buffen Harkness Brown in Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin . Francis Raymond Fosberg transferred this species as Coprosma esulcata in Brittonia in 1956 to the genus Coprosma .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Warren L. Wagner, David H. Lorence: Revision of Coprosma (Rubiaceae, tribe Anthospermeae) in the Marquesas Islands . In: PhytoKeys . No. 4 , 2011, ISSN 1314-2003 , p. 109-124 , doi : 10.3897 / phytokeys.4.1600 .
- ↑ Coprosma esulcata at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, accessed on November 8, 2016.