Hunzikeria steyermarkiana
| Hunzikeria steyermarkiana | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hunzikeria steyermarkiana | ||||||||||||
| D'Arcy |
Hunzikeria steyermarkiana is a species of the genus Hunzikeria in the nightshade family(Solanaceae). The range of the species is in Venezuela .
description
Hunzikeria steyermarkiana is an herbaceous plant up to 20 cm high . It forms short roots and round, slender stems that are hairy with short, weak, curved trichomes . The leaves are inverted egg-shaped, up to 4 cm long and up to 1.3 cm wide. To the front they are blunt, towards the base they taper to an elongated, narrow upwardly winged, 5 to 15 mm long petiole , which is keeled at the base. About three leaf veins branch off from the leaf axis on each side. The top of the leaf blade is sparsely hairy with short, glandular trichomes, the underside is hairless.
The flowers stand individually at the tips of the stems. The flower stalks are glandular and tomentose, slightly angled and about 3 mm long at flowering time, on the fruit they extend to 5 to 7 mm. The flowers are directed upwards, their calyx is bell-shaped to inversely conical, with five blunt or triangular calyx tips and hairy on the outside, hairless inside. It reaches a diameter of 4 mm and is 5 mm long, on the fruit it is slightly elongated. Ten veins can be seen on the calyx tube. The crown is saucer-shaped, in dried specimens it is mauve. The corolla tube is slender and up to 10 mm long, hairy on the outside and provided with a longitudinal vein. The coronet is wheel-shaped and measures 15 mm in diameter. The four stamens appear in two different forms, but the anthers are of the same shape and always fertile. The stylus is winged at the tip, the stigma is flat, heart-shaped or rectangular and has four weak notches that face the anthers.
The fruit is a capsule that is enclosed in the calyx.
Distribution and locations
The species is known only from locations in semi-deserts on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela , west of Caracas .
Botanical history
The species was first described by William D'Arcy in 1978 . The type specimen was collected in El Palito , near Puerto Cabello . The herbarium is in the New York Botanical Garden . The epithet honors Julian Alfred Steyermark for his work in researching the flora of Venezuela.
literature
- William D'Arcy: A Preliminary Synopsis of Salpiglossis and Other Cestreae (Solanaceae) . In: Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden , Volume 65, 1978. pp. 698-724.