Rubiaceae of the New World

By Piero Delprete and Rocio Cortés
 

REMIJIA A. de Candolle

Remijia ulei    Stipules and inflorescences Mun. Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil

Habit (with P. Delprete)

Shrubs, small trees or medium-sized trees; raphides absent; axillary thorns absent. Stipules interpetiolar, free at base or connate at base, narrowly triangular, deltoid, broadly triangular, ovate, obovate, oblong or ligulate, subcaducous or readily caducous. Leaves opposite or whorled, 3 to 5 per node, long or short-petiolate; blades ovate, narrowly elliptic, elliptic, obovate, broadly obovate, oblong or oblanceolate; stiffly chartaceous, papyraceous, thinly or thickly coriaceous; foliar pellucid glands absent; domatia sparse or dense tufts of hairs or absent. Inflorescence axillary, paniculate densely or sparsely branched, cymose pauciflorous or multiflorous or thyrsoid. Flowers bisexual, protandrous. Calyx cup-shaped, with undulate margin or with small lobes, campanulate, short or long tubular, persistent; lobes absent (calyx truncate or undulate), 5 or 6, narrowly triangular, broadly triangular or lanceolate, absent, minute, small or long, aestivation valvate. Calycophylls absent. Corolla hypocrateriform, actinomorphic, white to cream-white; tube externally puberulent, pubescent, hirsute or sericeous; internally glabrous or pubescent at mouth; without a pubescent ring inside; orifice annular thickening absent; lobes 5 or 6, valvate, linear-lanceolate or linear, margin entire, acute at apex. Stamens alternate to the corolla lobes, included or partially exserted (only tips exserted); anthers narrowly elliptic, narrowly oblong, elongate or linear, round at base, round at apex, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, dorsifixed near the base; filaments attached at the middle of the corolla tube, free at base, slender, short (anthers subsessil) or long, shorter than corolla tube, equal, glabrous. Pollen colporate, apertures 3 or 4, exine surface foveolate, released as monads. Style partially exserted (only tips of branches exserted) or included, terete throughout, not fleshy, glabrous, antrorse-strigose, pubescent or setose-hirsute at basal portion; lobes 2, ovate, elliptic or oblong. Ovary inferior, 2-locular, obconical, ovoid or oblate; placentation axile, placenta peltate to the entire lenght of the septum; ovules many per locule. Fruit a septicidal capsule, dehiscing basipetally, the valves secondarily splitting at apex or septicidal capsule, dehiscing acropetally (rarely basipetally), thinly woody. Seeds horizontal, medium-sized to large, laterally compressed, irregularly elliptic in outline; wings bipolar, margin nearly entire, dentate or fimbriate.

Geographic distribution: Northern Chocó area, Magdalena-Llanos area, Napo-Marañón drainage, southwestern Amazon Basin, western Amazon Basin, Guayana Shield, central Amazon basin, eastern Amazon basin, Brazilian Atlantic coast, Brazilian planalto, northern Andes (above 1000 m) and extra-tropical South America.

Number of species: 41.

References: J. A. Steyermark, Remija, in Maguire & collaborators, Fl. Guyana Highland, Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 23: 249-269. 1972; L. Andersson, Remija, Fl. Ecuador 62: 64-69. 1994.