Friedmannia Kocyan & Wiland, 2016

Kocyan, Alexander & Wiland-Szymańska, Justyna, 2016, Friedmannia: a new genus from the Seychelles and the beginning of a generic realignment of Curculigo (Hypoxidaceae), Phytotaxa 283 (1), pp. 54-64 : 60-62

Friedmannia Kocyan & Wiland gen. nov.

Evergreen herbs; leaves pseudo-petiolate, armed with spines on the pseudo-petiole; lamina cuneate or broadly lanceolate in outline but bifid in the last third of the distal part, plicate; leaf lamina with spines along the main leaf vein and the leaf margins; inflorescence axis short, emerging at the base of the pseudo-petioles, racemose, composed of about 50 flowers, laterally flattened, flowers subtended by clasping triangular pubescent bracts; flowers sessile; tepals creamish to yellow, lanceolate; stamens with short filaments, anthers basifixed sagittate, with the connective overtopping the anthers, stigma a triangular pyramid of which the flanks are covered with stigmatic papillae, very long rostrum, ovary short, spindle shaped, ovule number ca. 20; fruit an ovoidal berry, on short thick pedicel, ca. 6 mm long, ca. 18 mm long and 10 mm wide (when dry), containing from less than ten to over a dozen seeds; seeds ovoidal with an extremely short funicle and a very slightly protruded micropyle, 4.5–5.3 mm long and 3.5–4.3 mm wide; seed testa covered with irregular conical papillae, composed of smaller elongated papillae with irregular striae created by the wrinkled cuticle.

Type (holotype):— Curculigo seychellensis Bojer ex Baker (1877: 368) ; for the nomenclatural type of this name see below.

Etymology:—The genus Friedmannia is dedicated to Francis Friedmann, a retired botanist of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris/ France who devoted most of his professional life to the flora of the Seychelles. In Hypoxidaceae , he recognised the uniqueness of the genus Hypoxidia , which he raised into the rank of a genus of its own.