Cyrtandra sandei de Vriese, Pl. Ind. Bat. Orient.

Atkins, H. J. & Kartonegoro, A., 2021, A TAXONOMIC REVISION OF CYRTANDRA (GESNERIACEAE) IN SULAWESI, INDONESIA, Edinburgh Journal of Botany 78 (364), pp. 1-122 : 101-102

33. Cyrtandra sandei de Vriese, Pl. Ind. Bat. Orient. 14 (1856).

– Type: Indonesia, Celebes [Sulawesi], Lontar, Reinwardt s.n. (lectotype L [ L0003193 ], designated here) .

Shrub to 2 m in height. Leaves opposite, subequal; petioles c. 10 mm long, sparsely hairy; blades 16–19 × 5–9 cm; narrow obovate, base decurrent, margin serrate, apex acuminate, 17–20 pairs of lateral veins, glabrous above, sparsely hairy below, more densely so on midrib and veins. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes below current leaves; sessile; bracts narrow ovate, acuminate at apex, up to 12 × 3 mm, hairy. Calyx 6 mm long, lobes triangular, acuminate at apex, c. 2 mm long, hairy externally. Corolla pale green-yellow with reddish brown markings in the throat, c. 18 mm long, narrow in basal 1/3, widening to mouth in upper 2/3, upper lobes rounded, c.2 × 3 mm, lower and lateral lobes rounded c.3 × 4 mm, densely hairy externally. Stamens with filaments c. 6 mm long, glabrous with a few glandular hairs at the apex; anthers c. 1.5 mm long, face to face and connected at tips before dehiscence; staminodes 3, two lateral ones c. 1.5 mm long, central one c. 0.5 mm long. Gynoecium c. 10 mm long; disc unilateral, c. 2 mm long, glabrous; ovary and style densely eglandular hairy, stigma bilobed, c. 1 mm across. Fruits oblong, c.20 × 5 mm, hairy, calyx and base of style persistent.

Distribution. [Lontar] in Sulawesi (this locality could be Lota in North Sulawesi, because all Reinwardt’s collection localities are in the north of the island and Lota is listed as one of these ( van Steenis, 1950); Java and Sumatra.

Habitat and ecology. There is no information on the collection from Sulawesi, but the collections from Java and Sumatra were collected over a wide altitudinal range, from 100 to 1400 m.

Etymology. This species is named after C. M. van der Sande Lacoste, a medical doctor and good friend of de Vriese who studied cryptogamic plants (de Vriese, 1856).

Proposed IUCN conservation category. This species is recorded from Sulawesi, Java ( Bakhuizen van den Brink, 1950) and Sumatra (fide Bakhuizen van den Brink K, L) and, as such, has one of the widest distributions of Cyrtandra species in the region. The locality of the single collection of Cyrtandra sandei from Sulawesi, which is the type, is not known, so a category of Data Deficient (DD) is recommended for this species. Cyrtandra sandei is known, in Sulawesi, only from the type collection. It is most similar, in Sulawesi, to C. jellesmanii, in having subequal, decurrent leaves, non-tessellate stems, narrow inflorescence bracts and densely eglandular hairy ovaries. It can be most easily distinguished from this species by its much smaller flowers (18 mm long versus 45 mm long) and unilateral (as opposed to cupular) nectary disc.

The description here of Cyrtandra sandei is brief and has been compiled from the single Sulawesi collection (the type specimen), de Vriese’s original description, and supplemented with information from literature ( Clarke, 1883; Bakhuizen van den Brink, 1950). A detailed review of all the collections across the distribution of Cyrtandra sandei is needed to confirm that those from Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi are all the same species, and to capture the full intraspecific variation.