Voyria tenella
Content
Description
Herbs 5-20 cm tall; short stout roots, forming dense clumps and oriented like the rays of a star, tapering to apex, 1-10 mm long; stems white to cream, simple. Leaves triangular to narrowly triangular, 2-5 mm long. Flowers solitary, 5-merous, nodding in bud, fragrant; calyx tubular-campanulate, 2.5-4 mm long, tube 1-2 mm long, lobes narrowly ovate to narrowly triangular, 1-2 mm long, sinuses mostly acute; corolla with a white to orange tube, a yellow to orange throat, and blue, rarely purple to white lobes, trumpet-shaped, 10-22 mm long, tube 7-15 mm long, inner side glabrous, lobes narrowly ovate to narrowly obovate, 2-7 mm long, falling off with upper part of corolla tube after anthesis; stamens inserted 2-3 mm below throat, filaments absent, anthers 0.5-1 mm long, free or coherent, thecae tapering toward base, apex rounded-truncate; ovary fusiform, 3-5 mm long, shortly stipitate, provided with 2 distinctly stalked glands at base, style 2-4 mm long. Capsule ellipsoid to globose, 4-7 mm long, septicidally dehiscent in middle only, margins thickened and rolling inwards; seeds filiform, 0.5-1 mm long.
Distribution
Guianas present, Throughout the Neotropics present
Throughout the Neotropics; 81 collections studied from the Guianas (GU: 7; SU: 19; FG: 55).
Notes
In the southern part of French Guiana (Itoupé Mt.) material was found which is slightly differing from V. tenella . These specimens (a.o. Tostain 5828) always have white flowers and the ellipsoid gland at the base of the ovary has a much longer stipe (stipe ca. 5 mm long, versus 1-2 mm in V. tenella ).