|
|
Family: Acanthaceae
|
Herbaceous or suffrutescent plants up to 1.5 meters high; stems quadrangular (the angles rounded), sulcate, glabrous; leaf blades oblong-ovate, up to 22 cm. long and 8 cm. wide, acute to short but slenderly and more or less abruptly acuminate, rounded or obtuse at base, sessile or short petioled (petiole glabrous, up to 4 mm. long), firm and somewhat chartaceous, entire or undulate, glabrous, the venation (lateral veins 10 to 12 pairs) very prominent beneath, less so above, the cystoliths of both surfaces very numerous and conspicuous, 0.2-0.3 mm. long, straight or slightly curved; flowers rather numer- ous, borne in lax terminal panicles up to 20 cm. long and 8 cm. broad, the peduncles and lowermost internodes of the inflorescence up to 4 cm. long, the other internodes successively shorter towards the tip of the inflorescence, the ultimate ones slender, the flowers more or less secund, few to several (6 or more), borne at the tips of the branches of the inflorescence, the internodes of the flower-bearing spicate tips 5 mm. long, becoming shorter upward, the peduncle and lower in- florescence internodes glabrous, the upper ones sparingly puberulous with spreading glandular hairs about 0.1 mm. long; bracts subulate, up to 4 mm. long and 1 mm. wide at base, glabrous; bractlets similar to the bracts but slightly longer, the bracts and the internodes of the inflorescence bearing numerous conspicuous parallel cystoliths; calyx segments 4, 1 cm. long, narrowly lanceolate, 1 mm. wide near base, gradually narrowed into a slender tip, sparingly glandular- puberulous, the hairs similar to those of the inflorescence branches, the margins minutely ciliolate with spreading hairs; corollas up to 36 mm. long, purple, very sparingly and minutely pubescent without, the basal portion within densely and retrorsely strigose with white hairs up to 0.5 mm. long, the tube 2 mm. broad at base, narrowed at 3 mm. above base to 1.5 mm., thence gradually enlarged to 7 mm. at mouth, the upper lip suberect, triangularly ovate, about 8 mm. wide at base, acute at tip, the lower lip more or less spreading, rather narrowly obovate, 5 mm. wide at 4 mm. below tip, 4 mm. wide at tip, 3-lobed, the lobes low and rounded, 1 mm. long, the middle lobe 1.5 mm. wide, the lateral ones 1 mm. wide; stamens exserted about 9 mm. beyond the mouth of the corolla tube, the filaments glabrous, the anther cells superposed and obliquely attached to the connective, about 2 mm. long and 0.5 mm. thick, the upper lobe puberulous dorsally, the hairs stiff, erect, straight, narrowly triangular, 0.8 mm. long, white, the lower lobe terminated in a blunt tail 0.13 mm. long; style as long as the stamens, glabrous or bearing a few minute hairs near base; ovary glabrous; capsules not seen. Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 2025698, collected on trail between Río Guejar and the "caño" Guapayita, Cordillera La Macarena, Intendencia of Meta, Colombia, 500 to 600 meters altitude, December 20-28, 1950, by Jesús M. Idrobo & Richard Evans Schultes (No. 825). The following specimens, all from the Macarena region, are also of this species: Philipson & Idrobo's No. 1794 (BM), collected in dense forest on the central mountain approach ridge, 600 meters altitude, December 19, 1949; Idrobo and Schultes' No. 1283 (US), collected on the mesa of Río Sansa, 1,000 to 1,300 meters, January 23, 1951; and Philipson, Idrobo and Jaramillo's No. 2146 (US), collected in dense humid forests of the central mountains of the north ridge, 1,500 meters altitude, January 23, 1950. Justicia cystolithosa is an attractive species easily recognized by its stiff, papery, almost sessile leaf blades conspicuously veined and covered with cystoliths and by its graceful panicles of rather large purple flowers. |