Miconia sect. Lima Majure & Judd, J. Bot. Res. Inst. Texas. 7: 266. 2013

Majure, Lucas C., Becquer, Eldis R. & Judd, Walter S., 2016, Revision of the Lima clade (Miconia sect. Lima, Miconieae, Melastomataceae) of the Greater Antilles, PhytoKeys 72, pp. 1-99 : 11-12

Miconia sect. Lima Majure & Judd, J. Bot. Res. Inst. Texas. 7: 266. 2013

Type.

Miconia lima (Desr.) M. Gómez ( Melastoma lima Desr., Encycl. [J. Lamarck & al.] 4: 47. 1797).

Description.

Evergreen shrubs to small trees; young stems terete, elliptic or slightly rectangular in cross section, lacking longitudinal ridges, the indumentum of dense bulla-based hairs, these long appressed, spreading, or recurved, or short and granulate. Leaves opposite, slightly anisophyllous; blade elliptical, ovate, or lanceolate, the margin crenulate to dentate, these crenulations/dentations obscured by large bulla-based hairs, which slightly fold over the leaf margin, producing in some cases a moderately revolute margin, the indumentum of adaxial leaf surface typically of broad bulla-based hairs and more or less filling the areoles, although sometimes these hairs relatively narrow and wide-spaced, not filling the areoles, with long-stemmed, clavate-dentritic hairs produced along the primary, secondary and tertiary veins from between the bulla-based hairs, and also sessile to short-stalked glandular hairs present on all parts of the lamina (between bulla-based hairs), the abaxial leaf surface variously covered by narrow bulla-based hairs, these either long and well developed or short and granulate, these appressed, spreading, or erect, the lamina with sparse, sessile glands, the venation acrodromous, with secondary veins arching toward leaf apex, 1 to 3 pairs, basal to suprabasal, tertiary veins percurrent, more or less perpendicular to the midvein, sometimes mostly obscured by bulla-based hairs on the adaxial leaf surface, connected by quaternary veins, the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary veins mostly impressed on the adaxial surface and raised on the abaxial surface, domatia present or absent, occurring at the junctions of primary, secondary and tertiary veins, forming a pocket-like structure in the axils of the primary and innermost secondary veins or formed from a tuft of hairs in the vein axils. Inflorescences terminal, although often surpassed by the rapid growth of axillary shoots, the flowers in 3-flowered dichasia, sessile, subsessile or pedicellate, thus forming open cymes or sessile and nearly headlike clusters. Flowers 4-5(7)-merous, mostly actinomorphic or nearly so; hypanthium 4-5-lobed, the lobes sometimes obscured by retrorse or antrorse bulla-based hairs, bulla-based hairs long and well developed, or granulate, hypanthium also with sessile glands; calyx lobes triangular, acute to acuminate, often covered by sessile glands throughout the adaxial surface or such glands restricted to the apex of the adaxial surface, abaxial surface covered in bulla-based hairs and more or less sessile glands; calyx teeth ca. equal to or longer than calyx lobes, terete, mostly reflexed in fruit, covered in long and well developed, or granulate bulla-based hairs, sessile glands present or absent; calyx tube often with long stemmed, clavate-dendritic hairs produced from apex along the margin, sessile glands more or less present on adaxial surface, abaxial surface covered in bulla-based hairs; petals ovate to obovate or slightly oblong, symmetric or asymmetric, white, red, rose, purple, or white with purple tinge abaxially, apices acute to acuminate, with moderately bulla-based hairs produced from the abaxial surfaces just below the petal apex and occasionally from the medial portion of the petal as well; stamens 8-10, not geniculate, the filaments glabrous, the anthers with or without a small dorso-basal appendage and a single, dorsally inclined pore; style straight to moderately curved, generally expanded in the middle, the stigma punctiform; ovary 2-5(7) locular, more or less inferior, with axile placentation, the placenta intruded into each locule, the ovary apex without a collar but commonly with a crown of multicellular hairs, the upper portion of the ovary pubescent (bulla-based hairs) to mostly glabrous (i.e., with only crown hairs present). Fruit a globose and slightly 4- or 5-lobed berry, purple-black at maturity. Seeds angular, obpyramidal, obovoid to obovoid-falcate, with a linear to oblong, dark colored raphe that extends the length of the seed; testa smooth; appendage absent.

Miconia sect. Lima is a clade of 19 species restricted to the Greater Antilles (excluding Puerto Rico).