Coutaportla includes four species of small trees with showy flowers in dry matorral vegetation on limestone in central and northern Mexico. These plants have short internodes and leaves and flowers clustered at the stem apices; opposite, subsessile, small leaves (0.5-5 x 0.2-2 cm); interpetiolar, triangular, persistent stipules; terminal, several-flowered, cymose, bracteate inflorescences; 4-merous flowers with well developed calyx lobes; funnelform, medium-sized (2-5 cm long), white to pink corollas with broadly triangular lobes; subglobose to ellipsoid, flattened, septicidal capsules; and several discoid, flattened seeds. The stem apices are usually covvered with some sort of exudate. The leaves are apparently rather leathery, and lack domatia. The inflorescences are terminal (Borhidi, 2003; Lorence, 1986), and were illustrated as such by Borhidi (2012: fig. 32) but described there by him incorrectly as axillary (Borhidi, 2012: 157). The flowers of an inflorescence appear to open generally simultaneously (e.g., Torres-Montúfar et al., 2023: fig. 2), and to be quite showy. The capsules open from the top, and are shortly loculicidal then deeply septicidal. The placenta of Coutaportla is vertically oriented and axile. It extends as a flattened structure into the locule, and bears ovules in pairs with one on the top part and one on the bottom part; there are generally about 2-6 ovules per locule. The seed coat of Coutaportla ghiesbrechtiana is foveolate-reticulated with a distinctive tubercle in each areole; the testa of Coutaportla pailensis was described in its protololgue as reticulate but not further detailed. Some aspects of the ecology of htis species seem to be poorly known, and whether the flowers are mainly diurnal or noctural (or both) is not clear.

The corollas of Coutaportla are apparently flattened rather than are inflated in bud, as in related genera, although Borhidi (2003) seems to note that the corollas of Coutaportla guatemalensis (as Lorencea) are inflated. The corolla aestivation in all the species appears to be distinctive, with two flat, external lobes and and two induplicate, internal lobes. This aestivation is generally described as thinly imbricated, but some herbarium specimens appears possibly to be valvate. This aestivation is quite different from that of Lorencea, which has inflated buds and all the lobes flat there. The description of the aestivation appears to have been reversed for these genera in Borhidi's (2003, Table 1) comparison of them. The corolla lobes of Coutaportla appear on dried specimens to be glandular at the tip; this has not been noted or otherwise commented on previously.

The identity and morphology of Coutaportla ghiesbrechtiana were studied by Aiello (1979). She found ovary and fruit characters to be important for understanding systematic relationships in this overall group of genera. She recognized Coutaportla as a monotypic genus based on these features, similarly to several other species associated with Portlandia. A few years later, a second species was described, Coutaportla pailensis (Villarrea Q., 1987). Around the same time, Lorence (1986) reviewed Coutaportla again in his analysis of the first complete material available of Portlandia guatemalensis, a species of southern Mexico and Central America.The mature ovaries and fruits of Portlandia guatemalensis were unknown until then, and Lorence compared these to the genera treated by Aiello (1979), He found that Portlandia guatemalensis shared most of its ovary and fruit features and its general biogeographic range with Coutaportla, and only with that genus, and included it there. Lorence discussed here (1986: 213) the overall characterization of this expanded Coutaportla, incuding its ecology.

Borhidi (2003) reviewed the relationships of Portlandia guatemalensis again, and concluded it differed from Coutaportla ghiesbrechtiana in its axile placentation; in having the ovules ascending in one series rather than in two series with some ascending and some pendulous; in details of papillosities of the testa wall; in its stipules united around the stem rather than interpetiolar; in its usually 5-merous rather than 4-merous flowers; it its filaments pubescent only in the basal part rather than throughout, and in the recent molecular study where Portlandia guatemalensis and Coutaportla ghiesbrechtiana were found as well supported sisters but on two relatively long branches (Borhidi, 2003: 17, "se encuentran en el termino de dos ramas indiviuales largas"). He separated these species again, and described the monotypic genus Lorencea for Portlandia guatemalensis. The seed coat details he analyzed were based on the illustrations presented by Aiello (1979) and Lorence (1986), apparently rather than direct observation. The molecular study cited by him was at that time an unpublished dissertation, which was later published by Rova et al. (2002).

Lorence et al. (2012) reviewed Borhidi's (2003) study and the molecular data, and continued to recognize broadly circumscribed Coutaportla based on shared characters, with Lorencea included as a synonym. This circumscription wa supported as monophyletic by Rova et al.'s (2002) molecular results.

More recently Paudyal et al. (2018) studied this group with more molecular data and additional taxa. They found Coutaportla ghiesbrechtiana and Coutportla pailensis placed as sister species with good support, and this clade then grouped with Coutaportla guatemalensis or Lorencea with somewhat lower support and separated Lorencea again. They also found this Coutaportla-Lorencea clade to be apparently sister to the rest of their Chiococceae. They noted that these species or genera did not resolve as a single clade in all of their separate analyses, but regarded Lorencea as a separate monotypic genus from Coutaportla and stated that their molecular data did not exclude this possiblity. 

Coutaportla and Lorencea appear in all analyses to be closely related and to form a monophyletic group, and whether they were combined or separated has seemed to be, to a large extent, a preference for classification emphasizing shared features or differences. However, more recent studies by Torres-Montúfar et al. (2022, 2023) detailed the morphology of this group with additional material and characters, and concluded by treating Coutaportla broadlly again, to include Lorencea (Torres-Montúfar et al., 2023), and their treatment is followed here.

The study of Coutaportla by Torres-Montúfar et al. (2023) was part of a larger study of the Chiococceaee tribe in Mexico, and they found in comparing the genera that  some plants of Coutaportla from northeastern Mexico had been confused with Chiococca. These plants were included in the original description of Chiocoocca grandiflora Lorence & T. Van Devender of northern Mexico, and Torres-Montúfar separated these plants as Coutaportla lorenceana. The specimens that were previously included in Chiococca grandiflora were paratypes, not the type, so the name Chiococca grandiflora is still a separate, accepted species with its description and reported range now emended by Torres-Montúfar et al. They cited Chicocca grandiflora "pro parte" as a synonym in the protologue of Coutaportla lorenceana, which can appear to be problematic nomenclaturally. However, the name Chiococca grandiflora is nomenclaturally attafched only to its type specimen, so their inclusion here of paratype specimens is not a synonymization of that name. Their citation here refers actually to "Chiococca grandiflora sensu Lorence & T. Van Deventer" in a more standard American taxonomic form. 

Coutaportla is similar in aspect and various characters, including the capsules, to Nernstia, with solitary, axillary, five-merous flowers with somewhat larger corollas, 5-8 cm long,.

Author: C.M. Taylor
The content of this web page was last revised on 29 March 2023.
Taylor web page: http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/taylor.shtml

• Aiello, A. 1979. A reexamination of Portlandia (Rubiaceae) and associated taxa. J. Arnold Arbor. 60(1): 38–126.
• Lorence, D. H. 1986. The identity of Portlandia guatemalensis (Rubiaceae). Syst. Bot. 11(1): 209–213.
• Borhidi, A. 2003. Lorencea, gen. nov. (Condamineae, Rubiaceae) de Guatemala y Mexico. Acta Bot. Hung. 45(1–2): 13–21.
• Rova, J. H. E., P. G. Delprete, L. Andersson & V. A. Albert. 2002. A trnL-F cpDNA sequence study of the Condamineeae-Rondeletieae-Sipaneeae complex with implications on the phylogeny of the Rubiaceae. Amer. J. Bot. 89(1): 145–159.
• Paudyal, S.K., P. G. Delprete, S. Neupane & T. J. Motley. 2018. Molecular phylogenetic analysis ad generic delimitations in tribe Chioccceae (Cinchonoideae, Rubiaceae). Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 187: 365-396.
• Lorence, D. H., C. M. Taylor, C. D. Adams, L. Andersson, W. C. Burger, P. G. Delprete, K. Es, T. McDowell, H. Ochoterena-Booth, C. H. Persson, F. Piesschaert & D. W. Taylor. 2012. Rubiaceae. 4(2): 1–288. In G. Davidse, M. Sousa Sánchez, S. Knapp & F. Chiang Cabrera (eds.) Fl. Mesoamer. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.
• Villarreal-Quintanilla, J. Á. 1987. Coutaportla pailensis (Rubiaceae), a new species from Coahuila, Mexico. Sida 12(1): 223–225.
• Torres-Montúfar, A., H. Flores-Olvera, H. Ávila-González, A. Castro-Castro & H. Ochoterena-Booth. 2023. An assessment of Coutaportla (Chioccceae, Rubiaceae) with the description of a new species from Mexico. Pl. Ecol. Evol. 156(1): 3-12.
• Torres-Montúfar, A., S. Sánchez-Bautista & M. Aguilar-Morales. 2022. A synthesis of the Chiococceae tribe (Cinchonoideae, Rubiaceae) in Mexico: morphology, diversity, and endemism. Phytotaxa 542(1): 35-52.