|
|
Family: Acanthaceae
|
Rambling suffrutescent herbs up to 1.3 meters high; stems up to 2 cm. in diameter at base, ascending, subhexagonal, glabrous or the tips puberulous, the hairs curved and confined chiefly to the grooves; leaf blades oblong-ovate, up to 15 cm. long and 6.5 cm. wide, acuminate (the tip itself subacute), narrowed at base, thin, entire or undulate, both surfaces glabrous except the costa and basal portions of the lateral veins (5 or 6 pairs), these and the costa densely puberulous, the hairs brownish and curved, the cystoliths 125 to 175μ long, conspicuous under a lens; petioles rather slender, up to 5.5 cm. long, glabrous ventrally, the channel puberulous as is the costa; cymes solitary or in pairs, axillary, the peduncle glabrous or bifariously puberulous, flattened and 3 to 3.5 mm. broad at tip, forked at 3 to 5 mm. above base, the portion above the node up to 3 cm. long, bearing at node a pair of minute subulate bracts about 1 mm. long, these often deciduous; the large cymule bracts similar but slightly different in size, the posterior bract up to 23 mm. long and 20 mm. wide, the anterior up to 18 mm. long and 15 mm. wide, both ovate, rounded or broadly obtuse and apiculate at tip, truncate or rounded at base, subchartaceous, glabrous, bearing prominent cystoliths, conspicuously veiny, the veinlets coarsely reticulate, the costa extended through the flattened portion of the peduncle; flowers several, subsessile, subtended by several pairs of thin subcostate triangular acute ciliate bracts about 1 mm. long and wide; calyx 3.5 mm. long, densely puberulous except the glabrous basal portion of the narrowly campanulate tube, the pubescence a mixture of conical or subtruncate and more slender sharply pointed hairs, the calyx segments triangular, 1 mm. long and 0.75 mm. wide at base, acute; corolla white with purple-mottled lip, glabrous except the medial portions and outer surface of the lips, these hirtellous, the hairs spreading, about 0.25 mm. long, the tube 12 mm. long, 2.5 mm. broad, the mouth 4 mm. broad, the upper lip obovate, about 11 mm. long and 5 mm. wide, rounded or obtuse, the lower lip narrowly ovate, 14 mm. long and 4 mm. wide, 3-lobed at apex, the lobes about 1 mm. long, rounded, the middle one 1 mm. wide, the lateral ones slightly narrower; the stamens slightly exceeding the upper lip of the corolla, the anther lobes superposed, 2 mm. long and 0.75 mm. broad, the filaments flattened, dorsally hirtellous, the hairs up to 80μ long; ovary glabrous, the disk low and cupuliform; capsules not seen. Type in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden, collected along a stream in thick forest in the region of Mount Chapón, Department of Boyacá, Colombia, "3,400 ft." altitude, June 28, 1932, by A. E. Lawrance (No. 258). Isotype: US. The specific epithet alludes to the shovel-shaped cymule bracts. Dicliptera batilliformis is closely related to D. megalochlamys differing chiefly from that species in its rounded ovate cymule bracts definitely longer than broad, and the short-stalked simple or forked cymes. The cymule bracts of D. megalochlamys are broader than long and cymes 3-parted instead of forked, the subtending bracts of the node larger, and the basal segment of the peduncle considerably longer. |