Pyrostegia venusta (Ker Gawler) Miers, 1863.

Verloove, Filip, 2021, New records in vascular plants alien to Tenerife (Spain, Canary Islands), Biodiversity Data Journal 9, pp. 62878-62878 : 62878

Pyrostegia venusta (Ker Gawler) Miers, 1863.

Pyrostegia venusta Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc. London 3: 188. 1863.

Distribution

TENERIFE: Santa Úrsula, La Quinta, barranco de la Plaza, shrubland adjacent to barranco, at Hotel La Quinta, escape (also elsewhere in the area), 15.01.2017, F. Verloove 12729 (BR). https://observation.org/observation/205286641/

Notes

Pyrostegia venusta is native to Brazil, but widely cultivated in the tropics and subtropics as an ornamental vine. It is very expansive and readily colonises vast surfaces. Although the seed-set is rarely observed outside the native range, the species is increasingly considered an unwanted, invasive environmental weed that quickly spreads as a result of clonal growth. It is now classified as an invasive weed in many areas, for instance, in Florida in the U.S.A. ( Hutchinson 2005).

Pyrostegia venusta grows in several places in La Quinta in Tenerife (Fig. 8 ). It is found in vacant lots in residential areas and on the verge of a ravine. It probably arose from discarded garden waste. It had not been recorded before in the Canary Islands. Since it is very commonly grown as an ornamental there, it will doubtlessly increase in the near future and may well establish permanent colonies.

Figures

Figure 8. Pyrostegia venusta, Santa Ursula (La Quinta), January 2017.