Abolboda pulchella
Content
Description
Smooth, slender, perennial by slender rhizomeor by lateral budsfrom ascending to erect caudices. Leaves often dimorphic, those of juvenile rosettes stubby, scale-like or linear-triangular, curved, to 2 cm, of later rosettes variably elongate-linear, 2-15 cm, strongly convex-backed by a strong midvein, blades otherwise flattened and thin-margined, tips gradually narrowed, terete or trigonous, apically thickened and blunt, sometimes with an excentric aristula or mucro. Scape 10-30 cm x 0.8-1.5 mm (distally), terete, rarely angulate or sulcate, scale bracts 1 pair, unequal, 1.5-3 cm; spikes ellipsoid to narrowly obovoid (turbinate), 8-15 mm, few-flowered, bracts broadly ovate, 6-11 mm, dorsal area broadly ovate, midrib excurrent as short, thick, blunt cusp, margin broad, scarious. Sepals 2, lanciform, as long as bract, tip slightly exserted, keel curved, entire, acute; corolla 14-15 mm, light blue-violet; anthers 2-2.5 mm; lateral stylar appendages recurved, broadly short-clavate, basally auriculate. Capsule broadly ellipsoid to short-cylindric, 4 mm, apically umbilicate, valve tips bilobed, lobes rounded; seeds mostly broadly obovoid, 0.5-0.6 mm, nearly black, coarsely irregularly longitudinally thick-ribbed, intervals paler, broad, nearly smooth.
Distribution
E of the Andes present, French Guiana present, SE Colombia present, Southern America: Brazil Southeast (Minas Gerais present, São Paulo present), central Brazil present
SE Colombia E to French Guiana, southward E of the Andes deep into central Brazil (Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo).
Notes
This species makes a complex with A. poarchon and shares much habitat with the latter in Amazonia and central Brazil. The latter taxon is doubtfully admitted to the flora of Suriname but should be looked for along the common border of the Guianas with Brazil (compare key cha- racters and descriptions!)