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(Last Modified On 1/14/2013)
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(Last Modified On 1/14/2013)
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Species
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MUEHLENBECKIA TAMNIFOLIA (HBK.) Meissn.
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PlaceOfPublication
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Gen. P1. 2:227. 1840.
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Synonym
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Polygonum tamnifolium HBK. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 2:180. 1817. Polygonum flexuosum Benth. P1. Hartw. 80. 1839. Polygonum quadrangulatum Mart. & Gal. in Bull. Acad. Brux. 10' :353. 1843. Muehlenbeckie Benthamii Endl. Gen. Suppl. 4:51. 1847. Muehlenbeckia quadrangulata Endl. loc. cit. 51. 1847. Muehlenbeckia tamnifolia a Humboldtii Meissn. in DC. Prodr. 14. 149. 1856. Muehlenbeckia tamnifolia 3 quadrangulata Meissn. loc. cit. 149. 1856. Muehlenbeckia tamnifolia y Hartwegii Meissn. loc. cit. 149. 1856. Muehlenbeckia tamnifolia 8 laxiflora Meissn. loc. cit. 149. 1856. Muehlenbeckia leptobotrys Meissn. loc. cit. 149. 1856. Muehlenbeckia Stuebeiji Lindau, in Hieron. in Bot. Jahrb. 21:307. 1895. Sarcogonum tamnifolium Rusby, in Mem. Torr. Club 6:111. 1896. Calacinum tamnifolium (HBK.) Macbr. in Field Mus. Bot. 4:116. 1927. Calacinum leptobotrys (Meissn.) Macbr. loc. cit. 116. 1927.
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Description
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Clambering glabrous lianas, the branches smooth and sulcate, often angulate. Leaves glabrous, ovate, apically usually abruptly acuminate, basally hastate or cordate to acute, the blades mostly 3-8 cm. long, 1.5-4 cm. broad; petioles mostly 8-20 mm. long, glabrous, terete or canaliculate. Inflorescences chiefly of axillary racemes or panicles, the rhachises glabrous, rarely with reduced leaves. Flowers short-pedicellate, the pedicels apically articulated, 0.5-3 mm. long; tepals mostly five, greenish white, ovate, apically subacute to rounded, slightly connate basally, 1.5-3 mm. long, 1-2 mm. broad, glabrous; staminate flowers with 8 (-10) mostly separate stamens about 1 mm. long attached to the lower half of the tepals, the anthers introrse and versatile, about 0.5 mm. long, the ovary a short 3-styled rudiment or absent; pistillate flowers with trigonous superior ovaries with ovate facies; styles 3, strongly arcuate; stigmata fimbrillate-flabellate; stamens reduced to subsessile staminodia. Achenes bluntly trigonous, usually included by the tepals and hardly separable from their bases, often capped by an amorphous mass of stylar
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Habit
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lianas
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Description
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tissue, smooth or slightly verrucose, dark, lustrous, 2-3 mm. long, nearly or quite as broad.
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Specimen
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CHIRIQUI: R. Chiriqui Viejo, near Monte Lirio, G. White 65; Bajo Chorro, Boquete Dist., Davidson I77; vicinity of Casita Alta, Volca'n de Chiriqui, Woodson, Allen d- Seibert 92I; trail from Paso Ancho to Monte Lirio, Allen I507; Bajo Mono-Robalo trail, western slope of Cerro Horqueta, Allen 48I2. PROVINCE UNKNOWN: Sutton Hayes 486, 983.
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Distribution
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Often forming tangles in thickets or forests, this species ranges from southern Mexico through Central America and western South America to Argentina.
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Note
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In Costa Rica it is called bejuco Colorado. A decoction of the leaves was once con- sidered anti-hemorrhagic (fide HBK. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 2:180. 1817.). It is perhaps just coincidental that most specimens from Costa Rica and Panama have rounded to acute leaf bases and in other respects match the description of M. stuebelii Lind., a Colombian variant differing chiefly by its attenuate leaf bases and smaller inflorescences exceeded by the leaves. Allen 48I2 with both acute and subcordate leaf bases clearly shows that the leaf base is of little taxonomic sig- nificance in M. tainnifolia. Since many specimens with acute leaf bases have inflorescences clearly exceeding the leaves, it is concluded that M. stuebelii is conspecific with M. tamnifolia.
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