Rochefortia cuneata Sw.

Irimia, Ramona-Elena & Gottschling, Marc, 2016, Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales), Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 7720-7720 : 7720

Rochefortia cuneata Sw.

Rochefortia cuneata Rochefortia cuneata Prod. 54. 1788Fl. Ind. occid. 552-553. 1797O.P. Swartz s.n.UPS V-6577

Rochefortia cuneata Rochefortia ovata Prod. 54. 1788Fl. Ind. occid. 554. 1797O.P. Swartz s.n.UPS V-6578

Rochefortia cuneata Rochefortia acrantha Symb. antill. 5: 479. 1908W.H. Harris 8821NY-111151F-174394GH-97337US-655778W.H. Harris 9073aBM-953141

Description

Shrubs up to 2.5 m tall or small trees up to 8.0 m tall, galls absent; indument variously sericeous through glabrescent, trichomes simple; bark grey light through grey dark or brown, superficial grooves present; thorns 0.7-1.0 cm long, slender, acute, simple or rarely branched, scattered, alternate, axillary or rarely terminal, glabrous. Leaves fasciculate, rarely opposite or alternate; petiole 0.3-0.8 cm long, slender, hirsute or sometimes glabrescent; blade 1.5 –3.5(– 6.6) cm long, 0.5 –3.0(– 3.5) cm wide, obovate to widely obovate, occasionally orbicular, membranaceous, primary veins prominent, hirsute, secondary veins 4-11, tertiary veins reticulate; base cuneate or rounded; apex rounded, obcordate, sometimes retuse, rarely cleft; adaxial surface brightly glabrescent, with very rare cystoliths-like structures in epidermal cells, ciliate at tips, trichomes emerging from a swelled cystolith cell giving the impression of undulate leaf margin, abaxial surface brightly rugose, with scattered trichomes. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, branches slender, hirsute to glabrescent, pedicel 0.30-0.35 cm long. Calyx 0.35-0.40 cm long, 0.30-0.45 cm wide, coriaceous, hirsute outside, glabrous inside with scattered trichomes at distal blade, lobes 0.30-0.35 cm long, 0.28-0.40 cm wide, divided from the base, obovate, apex rounded. Corolla 0.40-0.55 cm long, membranaceous, glabrous on both surfaces, tube 0.25-0.30 cm long, funnel-shaped, lobes 0.25-0.35 cm long, obovate, slightly cilliate distally. Male flower unknown; anthers of female flower 0.07-0.08 cm long, oblong, filaments 0.03-0.04 cm long, adnate to the corolla tube for further 0.03-0.04 cm, pollen absent. Ovary of female flower globose, 0.25-0.30 cm long, style divided right from the base, branches 0.18-0.25 cm long, stigma cotyliform. Fruit 0.50-0.60 cm tall, 0.50-0.60 cm wide, globose; pyrene 0.45-0.50 cm tall, 0.25-0.30 cm wide, 0.10-0.13 cm deep, abaxial surface cutate.

Distribution

Jamaica, and presumably (with very few collections: Ekman 4145: K!, Leonard & Leonard: 11714 US!) also Haiti (Tortue Island) and Dominican Republic (La Vega province with a single collection: Zanoni 15680: MO!), on limestone soils at sea coast, in wooded and rocky hills (symbol "◊" in Fig. 3), at altitudes between 0-600 m.

Ecology

Flowering Mar, Jul, Sep, Nov; fruiting Mar, Jul.

Taxon discussion

Across Caribbean islands, R. cuneata exhibits amongst the largest leaves that have almost comparable size to those of the mainland species R. lundellii and R. spinosa . The species is most abundant in Jamaica, from where it was also discovered in the late 18th century. Three collections outside Jamaica (one from Dominican Republic and two from Haiti) are morphologically similar to R. cuneata , but all attempts failed to verify the determination by DNA sequence data ( Irimia et al. 2015).

Olof P. Swartz’ names were not properly typified before the present revision ( Johnston 1949: 128 indicated that the type originates from Jamaica). There are multiple of his gatherings present in different herbaria, but only UPS holds specimens assigned to both names R. cuneata and R. ovata (and O.P. Swartz was active in Uppsala). We designate explicitely such as type material here, because it is most likely that O.P. Swartz saw it and used it for his descriptions. Whether more material of R. cuneata (S-R-5496!) and R. ovata (B-W5461! C1-8769! LINN-HS471-2! M-196671! SBT12927!) can be considered original material remains conjecture. Lefor (1968) considered the Willdenow specimen as holotype of R. ovata , but his rationale is elusive (and has no taxonomic relevance as his thesis is not effectively published: ICN Art. 30.8.). Swartz (1788) and Swartz (1797) distinguished his two Jamaican species based on differing leaf shapes (i.e., cuneate versus ovate), but we consider that they are in the morphological range of a single species.

Notes

Representative specimens examined. - JAMAICA. Cockpit: NE of Dolphin Head, 18°23'N, 78°10'W (retroactively inferred), 20 Mar 1908 (♀ fl, fr), Harris 10302 (F! GH! K! P! US!); St. Elizabeth: Kaiser Bauxite area S of Gutters, near pit 101, 18°05'N, 77°36'W [retroactively inferred], 5 Jul 1955 (♂ fl), Howard & Proctor 14443 (A!); Near Troy: 18°14'N, 77°37'W [retroactively inferred], Sep 1906 (♀ fl), Britton 593 (F!); Negril: near the Lighthouse, sea coast, in rocky woods, 18°16'N, 78°21'W [retroactively inferred], 10 Mar 1908 (♀ fl, fr), Harris 10232 (BM! F! GH! K! P! US!). - DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Santo Domingo: La Vega, SE of Bonao, Flacombridge Domincana mine operation near Loma La Peguera: Arroyo Hato Viejo bw Loma Larga and Loma Fraser, 29 Jul 1981 (fr), Zanoni 15680 (MO!). - HAITI. Tortue Island: Pte Questin, Pte Petit Bois, 20°25'N, 72°46'W [retroactively inferred], 28 May 1925 (sterile), Ekman 4145 (K!); N slope, NW of La Vallée, 20°34'N, 72°56'W [retroactively inferred], 6 Jan 1929 (sterile), Leonard & Leonard 11714 (US!).

Common names

"green ebony" and "bois vert" in Jamaica.