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(Last Modified On 1/14/2013)
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(Last Modified On 1/14/2013)
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Genus
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PSITTACANTHUS Mart.
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PlaceOfPublication
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Flora 13:106. 1830
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Reference
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Eichler, in Mart. Fl. Bras. 5 pt. 2:23. 1868.
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Description
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Always stout and erect shrubs, lacking aerial roots. Leaves usually opposite, coriaceous. Flowers large, showy, brilliantly colored, hexamerous, androgynous, in ternations or binations; these in racemes, corymbs or umbels; bractlets united in a cup which subtends the flowers. Tepals either free or connate, sometimes ligulate at the base. Stamens unequal, alternately shorter and longer, the filaments slender; pollen grains 3-angled, flattened, the exine granulose. Stigma capitate. Fruit baccate, large for the group, the seeds without endosperm but bearing big, and often more than 2, cotyledons.
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Habit
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shrub
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Distribution
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About 80 species are known, especially in tropical America, 5 of them reported from Panama. The genus is easy of recognition because of the cups subtending the flowers, which are the largest among Loranthaceae, at least the New World ones.
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Key
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a. Branches terete. Leaves not falcate. Flowers 2-4 cm. long. b. Leaves very broadly ovate, approaching orbicular, up to 9.5 cm. in width ............,....,....,..,..,,..,.........1. P. SCHERYI bb. Leaves not ovate, to 3 cm. broad. c. Leaves oblong. Perianth 2-3 cm. long, the tepals lacking a typical ligule ................... .... 2. P. LATERIFLORUS cc. Leaves obovate-elliptic. Perianth 3-3.5 cm. long, the tepals con- spicuously ligulate at the base ..........................,.............. ....... 3. P. ALLENII aa. Branches 4-angled. Leaves oblique. Flowers 3-9 cm. long. b. Leaves lance-elliptic or oblong, obtuse. Flowers 3-5 cm. long.......,,.. 4. P. CHRISMARII bb. Leaves mostly ovate, acute. Flowers 5-9 cm. long...,,,.......,,,,,,.. 5. P. SCHIEDEANUS
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Note
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Another species that may well be expected is P. calyculatus (DC.) Don, from Mexico and found in Costa Rica, which is closely allied to P. chrismarii Urban but distinguishable by the longer, acute and not oblique leaves.
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