Alloplectus

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Alloplectus

Description

Terrestrial or epiphytic, caulescent, clambering or erect, coarse herbs or shrubs, without modified stems. Stems rarely branched. Leaves opposite, usually equal in a pair, venation pinnate, foliar nectaries absent. Flowers solitary or in fasciculate few-flowered, epedunculate inflorescences; bracteoles small; pedicellate. Calyx lobes 5, nearly free, ovate to cordate at base; corolla yellow or red, tubular, limb of 5 lobes; stamens included, filaments basally connate, anthers coherent or becoming free, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, thecae parallel; staminode small; disc a single dorsal, large, sometimes 2-lobed gland; ovary superior, stigma stomatomorphic to 2-lobed. Fruit a fleshy, green capsule, loculicidally dehiscent, 2-valved, valves opening slightly.

Distribution

C America present, Guianas present, Hispaniola present, Northern America, Southern America: Bolivia (Bolivia present), Suriname present, northern S America present
A genus of about 60 species mainly in C America and northern S America, from Mexico to Bolivia and Suriname, as well as Hispaniola; 2 species in the Guianas.

Uses

Plants of Alloplectus are rarely cultivated and have no known other economic uses.

Cytology

Chromosome number n=9 (Skog 1984).

Notes

Alloplectus meridensis Klotzsch ex Hanst. was included by Leeuwenberg (1958: 363) based on a sterile specimen from the Wilhelmina Mts. in Suriname. This specimen was later identified as A. savannarum C.V. Morton. Alloplectus meridensis is not otherwise expected to be found in the Guianas and is not included here.