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| Hechtia chamelensis Magaña & I. Ramírez, in Ramírez-Morillo, Ramírez-Diaz, Magaña Rueda, Tapia-Muñoz et Martínez. 2024. DOI: 10.17129/botsci.3404 |
Abstract
Background: Hechtia is characterized by its terrestrial, succulent rosettes, dioecy, and unisexual, dimorphic flowers, mainly fragrant. The paucity and fragmentary herbarium material limit the species recognition but living material reveals diagnostic characters to delimitate them.
Hypothesis: Hechtia species are circumscribed by a combination of vegetative and floral characters of both sexes. If the new taxon does not share morphological characters with other species, it will be described as new.
Taxon: Hechtia.
Study site and dates: Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, Jalisco, 1985-2023.
Methods: Field collected, cultivated as well as herbarium material of the new taxon were analyzed and compared to other species from the Pacific Lowlands and adjacent areas, particularly flowers of both sexes, fruits, and seeds. Conservation status using IUCN criteria is reported for the new species.
Results: Specimens of Hechtia chamelensis have been misidentified as H. laevis and H. reticulata (both described from fruiting, fragmentary specimens) but the fruit and seed features of both taxa do not match those of the new species. H. chamelensis is known from the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve and it is characterized by strict sympodial growth pattern, green leaves with red hues, shiny and glabrous above, white lepidote below, panicles usually simple to (rarely staminate ones) 2-divided, staminate flowers pinkish to pale white, pistillate with pale green to white petals.
Conclusions: Vegetative and reproductive features as well as geographical distribution allow the recognition of H. chamelensis as a new species native from Jalisco, Mexico.
Keywords: Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, conservation, endemic, floral dimorphism
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| Hechtia chamelensis; A) Infructescence, note its length of the infructescence when growing on shady places, Dr. Pablo Carrillo-Reyes (right)and Dr. William Cetzal (left) on the picture; B) same species with shorter infructescence (pointed by an arrow) when growing on exposed places, thisindividual is a few meters from the previous one; C) details of the origin of the inflorescence (terminal or central); D) details of adaxial surface of theleaves, color of foliar blade and spines. Photographs: I. Ramírez-Morillo. |
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| Hechtia chamelensis A) pistillate inflorescence; B) a branch with pistillate flowers in anthesis; C) staminate inflorescence; D) a branch withstaminate flowers; E) a comparison of staminate and pistillate flowers. Photographs: A-B and E: I. Ramírez, C: G. Carnevali, D: C. Ramírez-Díaz. |
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| Hechtia chamelensis in bloom; A) staminate inflorescence; B) staminate flowers; C) pistillate inflorescence; D) pistillate flower; E) fruits. Illustration by Alberto Guerra based on photographs provided by Ivón M. Ramírez-Morillo. |
Hechtia chamelensis Magaña & I. Ramírez, sp. nov.
Diagnosis. This new species differs from Hechtia reticulata in the following characters: fruits 5-6 per each 5 cm length (vs. 8-2 fruits), reticulate (vs. smooth), seeds ca. 1 mm long (vs. 3 mm), inflorescence branches 10-15 cm long vs. 10-12 (-25) cm long). H. laevis has branches with many fruits (40-50 in each 5 cm length) while H. chamelensis only has 5-6 fruits in each 5 cm length, primary inflorescence branches have no stipe nor primary bracts (vs. 2.5-4cm long in H. chamelensis and primary bracts triangular, long-acuminate, 3-4.5 cm long, 4-10 mm wide, longer to equaling the length of the stipe). The new taxon also shows staminate flowers 6-8 mm long, 7-9 mm diameter, petal sapically white, basally pink, widely spread; pistillate flowers 3 mm long, ca. 1 mm diameter; with white petals and sepals basally green apically brown, adnate to the ovary.
Ivón Ramírez-Morillo, Claudia J. Ramírez-Diaz, Patricia Magaña Rueda, José Luis Tapia-Muñoz and Ricardo Rivera Martínez. 2024. The official presentation to science of A New Species of Hechtia (Bromeliaceae: Hechtioideae) from the Pacific Lowlands in Mexico. Botanical Sciences. 102(2); 586-597. DOI: doi.org/10.17129/botsci.3404
