Gesneria hybocarpa Urb. & Ekman

Gesneria hybocarpa Urban & Ekman

Gesneria hybocarpa Urban & Ekman in Urban, Ark. Bot. 22A(10):76, 1929.

Subshrubs: stems woody, decumbent or suberect, up to 20 cm tall or rarely more, bark green, verruculose, and pilose when young, becoming gray, smooth and glabrescent with age; branches from the base, slender, 3–4 mm in diameter at 10 cm below the resinous apex, internodes up to 2 cm long.

Leaves alternate, not clustered: petioles sulcate or flattened, 1–6 mm long, ca 1 mm in diameter, green, verrucose and pilose-glandular; blades rhombic to oblanceolate, often falcate, 5.1–14.9 cm long, 1.9–4.2 cm wide, membranous, base cuneate or acute, margin serrulate to strongly serrate, occasionally shallowly undulate, apex acute or acuminate, adaxial surface green, subscabrous from remnants of scattered appressed white trichomes, abaxial surface lighter green, pilose with sparse appressed white trichomes and scattered glands, veins prominent, verruculose.

Inflorescences numerous, each of 1–3 flowers: peduncles terete, up to 3.9 cm long, ca 1 mm in diameter, green, very sparsely pilose; bracts 2, linear-lanceolate, ca 1.5 cm long, ca 1 mm wide, green and pilose; pedicels terete, up to 3.2 cm long, ca 1 mm in diameter, green and pilose; floral tube obconic, 2–3 mm long, ca 2 mm in diameter, pilose and verrucose; calyx spreading, connate for ca 3 mm above apex of ovary, 5-lobed, each lobe narrowly triangular, 1.2–2.1 cm long, ca 2.5 mm wide at base, outside green, pilose with trichomes at margins appressed, veins 3, prominent, inside green and glabrous; corolla tube curved, up to 3 cm long, ca 2.5 mm wide at base, ca 8 mm broad below the middle and narrowing to ca 4.5 mm at the throat, dark red, essentially glabrous with a few trichomes near the limb, limb 5-lobed, each lobe semiorbicular, ca 0.5 mm long, margin erose, mouth oblique; stamens 4, adnate to base of corolla tube and reaching the mouth of the corolla. Stigma exerted 4 mm beyond corolla (vide Urban).

Capsule globose, 3–5 mm long, 4–6 mm in diameter, brownish, glabrescent, and verrucose, costae 10; seeds fusiform, twisted, ca 1 mm long, dark brown.

TYPE-COLLECTION.—Anse-à-Foleur, Haiti, E. Ekman H4382 (S, holotype, Figure 66a; EHH, IJ, K, NY, S, US, isotypes).

DISTRIBUTION AND ECOLOGY.—Gesneria hybocarpa is known only from northern Haiti (Figure 54), where it grows on limestone cliffs. The type-collection with flowers was made in June.

SPECIMENS EXAMINED.—HISPANIOLA. HAITI. Département du Nord: Massif du Nord, Anse-à-Foleur, at Rivière St. Anne, 21 June 1925, E. Ekman H4382 (S, holotype of Gesneria hybocarpa Urban & Ekman; EHH, IJ, K, NY, S, US 2 sheets, isotypes).