Description

Shrubs to scandent shrubs: with long, slender and sparsely branched shoots; branching unknown; twigs terete, ca. 4 mm diam.; epidermis brownish to black, barely visible due to indument cover; terminal bud plump, ca. 3 X 2 mm; cataphylls persisting on current flush, up to 6 mm long; indument pubescent, persisting for at least two flushes or caducous after one flush, the hairs dense, up to 1.5 mm long, straight to curved, erect, reddish. Leaves: petioles pulvinate, ca. 8 cm X 3.5 mm, terete; blades thinly chartaceous, flat, narrowly elliptic to obovate, 17–29 X 6–10 cm; base cordate, ca. 230°; apex acute, ca. 70°, ultimately acuminate for up to 1.7 cm; margin plane; primary vein above slightly raised, below raised; secondary veins 6–8 pairs, equidistant (except basal-most two pairs which are very close together and distant from the rest), eucamptodromous, above slightly raised, below raised, diverging at 50–60°, evenly arching, chordal angle 20–30°, lowest pair more acute than rest (ca. 30°); tertiary veins above flat, below slightly raised, random-reticulate to scalariform; higher order veins above inconspicuous, below slightly raised; surface above brownish-green, below light brown; indument above and below absent, the veins with sparse, appressed, ascending, up to 1.0 mm long, brown hairs. Staminate plant unknown. Pistillate inflorescences: basitonic, from axils of cataphylls before elongation of new buds, pendulous?, peduncles 6–10 cm long, the hypopodia 3–4 cm X ca. 1.5 mm, branch orders 2(–3), the second-order branches 10–14, dispersed, color and indument of all axes as on twigs; bracts persistent, up to 6 mm long, adaxially glabrous; bracteoles persistent, up to 2.4 mm long, adaxially glabrous. Pistillate flowers: pedicels inconspicuous, pedicels inconspicuous, the diameter even throughout; receptacle flat, ca. 1.5 X 3 mm; tepals coriaceous, ovate, ca. 3 X 2 mm (inner whorl slightly smaller), at anthesis erect?, reddish-brown, adaxially glabrous; staminodes of whorls I and II, the anthers, sessile, chubby trapezoid, ca. 1.2 X 1.2 mm, glabrous, the locelli 4, apical, in a shallow arch, introrse, the glands absent; whorl III columnar, ca. 1.4 X 1 mm, glabrous, the locelli 4, the upper pair latrorse, the lower pair extrorse, the glands fused at base of stamen; whorl IV staminodial; staminodes, minute covered with long hairs; all staminodes reddish-brown; pistil ca. 2 X 1 mm; ovary globose, ca. 1.2 mm long, glabrous. Fruits: pedicels up to 6 X 6 mm, gradually enlarging to form the cupule; cupule trumpet-shaped, up to 4 X 10 mm, smooth, the margin undulate, tepals persisting; berry elliptic, up to 20 X 9 mm.

Field notes

Shrubs to scandent? shrubs up to 4 m tall and 3 cm diam. Tepals off-white. Cupule red; berry black.

Distribution (Figure 11)

Known only from the type found in western Guyana, at 200 m elev., in rain forest, on red lateritic soil.  As with other shrubby species of the Guayana highlands, the presence of both flowers and fruits on the same individual, indicates that this species does not have a narrow delimited flowering season.

Additional specimens examined

Discussion

Rhodostemonodaphne miranda is a most distinctive species.  It bears glabrous, chartaceous, nearly obovate, cordate leaves, with the first two pairs of secondary veins, leaving the midrib at a more acute angle and further apart than the rest.

Unfortunately this species is known from a single collection of a pistillate individual, and the flowers are in bud.  Hence there is little information available regarding the androecial structure of the species. Rhodostemonodaphne miranda appears to be most closely related to R. licanioides and R. scandens (see discussion under R. licanioides and Table IX).

Both vegetatively as well as in inflorescence structure, this species is very similar to Paraia bracteata Rohwer, Richter and van der Werff, from central and E Amazonia, the only known species of this recently described genus –-prior to the description of this new genus, the similarities between the specimens of this species named in herbaria as “Nectandra paraensis Coe-Texeira” and R. miranda had already been noted by Rohwer (1986).  Furthermore, P. bracteata shows cryptic dioecy (Rohwer et al., 1991).  However, the outer stamens with stipitate, incumbent, anthers with (sub)apical locelli, and the characteristic protruding style and stigma of P. bracteata (this last feature was not mentioned in the original description), are unlike any observed in Rhodostemonodaphne.  I was unable to find the holotype–-the only sheet with complete fruits–-of Nectandra miranda at K and thus could not check for the presence of an incipient double rim in the cupule as was described for P. bracteata.