Lycianthes bambusarum (Bitter) Bitter, Abh. Naturwiss. Vereins Bremen 24 [preprint]: 503. 1919.

Knapp, Sandra, 2022, A revision of Lycianthes (Solanaceae) in Australia, New Guinea, and the Pacific, PhytoKeys 209, pp. 1-134 : 1

1. Lycianthes bambusarum (Bitter) Bitter, Abh. Naturwiss. Vereins Bremen 24 [preprint]: 503. 1919.

Figs 4 , 5

Solanum bambusarum Bitter, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 55: 91. 1917. Type. Papua New Guinea. Madang: “Schraderberg” [Schrader Mountain], 1,900-2,000 m, May-Jun 1913, C.L. Ledermann 12129 (holotype: B [destroyed], no duplicates found). Papua New Guinea. Chimbu: Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area, vicinity of Haia, along the Wara oo streamcourse (first river E of Mt.Widau), 640 m, 6 Mar 1997, W.N. Takeuchi 11704 (neotype, designated here: LAE [acc. # 279948]; isoneotypes: K [K000224089, K000449027], L [L.4156113]).

Solanum umbonatum Symon, J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 8: 63. 1985. Type. Papua New Guinea. Morobe: Edie Creek, about 4 miles (6.4 km) SW of Wau, 1,829 m, 26 Apr 1963, T.G. Hartley 11756 (holotype: CANB [CANB151116]; isotypes: A, BRI [BRI-AQ0080263], K [K001153711], L [L0003674, L.2874714], LAE [acc. # 64346]).

Lycianthes umbonata (Symon) A.R.Bean, Austrobaileya 6(3): 568. 2003. Type. Based on Solanum umbonatum Symon.

Type.

Based on Solanum bambusarum Bitter.

Description.

Shrubs, scrambling shrubs, lianas or epiphytes, to 3.5 m tall (long); stems terete, glabrous; new growth minutely puberulent with tiny usually single-celled papillate trichomes less than 0.1 mm long, soon glabrous; bark of older stems pale beige, somewhat corky and peeling. Sympodial units unifoliate, the leaves not geminate. Leaves simple; blades 4-11 cm long, 2-4.5 cm wide, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, less commonly elliptic (i.e., Craven & Schodde 1258), slightly discolorous, membranous to chartaceous; adaxial and abaxial surfaces glabrous, the midrib somewhat keeled adaxially; principal veins 4-5 pairs, prominently anastomosing in arches before the margins; base acute to more commonly attenuate; margins entire; apex acuminate; petiole 0.6-1.2 cm long, glabrous. Inflorescences axillary fascicles of 1-4 (rarely to 8-10, e.g., Hartley 11434) flowers, only 1-2 open at a time, completely glabrous; pedicels (0.6 in bud) 1-1.2 cm long at anthesis, ca. 1 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 1.5 mm in diameter at the apex, glabrous or minutely papillate near the base, articulated at the base; pedicel scars tightly packed in leaf axils. Buds globose, becoming ellipsoid, the corolla exserted halfway from the calyx tube just before anthesis. Flowers 4-5-merous, unisexual and heterostylous, the flowers on individual plants apparently all either short-styled or long-styled and the plants dioecious (needs field testing). Calyx with the tube 2.5-3 mm long, 4-5 mm in diameter, cup-shaped, glabrous or minutely papillate, apparently fleshy, purple, with 4-5 small umbonate appendages to ca. 0.5 mm long or the appendages absent, the rim entire and extending for 0.25-0.5 mm beyond the appendages, the appendages more prominent in buds. Corolla 0.8-1.2 cm in diameter, purple, stellate, lobed 3/4 of the way to the base, interpetalar tissue absent, the lobes 4-5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, erect to spreading, fleshy (stiff and woody in dried specimens), glabrous abaxially and adaxially but densely papillate on tips and margins, the tips cucullate. Stamens equal; filament tube minute; free portion of the filaments ca. 0.1 mm long, glabrous; anthers 4-4.5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, ellipsoid, somewhat tapering at the tips, bright yellow, poricidal at the tips, the pores directed distally, not elongating to slits with age. Ovary conical, vestigial in short-styled flowers, glabrous; style in short-styled flowers less than 1 mm long, in long-styled flowers 4-6 mm long, straight, purple, glabrous; stigma bilobed, the surfaces minutely papillate. Fruit a globose berry, 0.6-0.7 cm in diameter, green (immature? - in Streimann 9635 remnants of the style still at apex), the pericarp glabrous, thin, matte, opaque; fruiting pedicels 1-1.3 cm long, ca. 1 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 2 mm in diameter at the apex, erect or spreading, somewhat woody, purple or green; fruiting calyx a cup-like spreading plate beneath the berry, somewhat thickened and warty (fleshy in live plants?). Seeds 50-70 per berry, ca. 2.5 mm long, ca. 2.5 mm wide, round with a deep notch at the hilum, yellowish tan, the surfaces deeply pitted, the testal cells pentagonal in outline. Stone cells absent. Chromosome number not known.

Distribution

(Fig. 6 ). Lycianthes bambusarum is endemic to the island of New Guinea; collected only from Papua New Guinea (Chimbu, Morobe, Madang [destroyed type only]).

Ecology and habitat.

Lycianthes bambusarum is a plant of montane forests with bamboo, Pandanus and/or Nothofagus , between 450 and 2,400 m elevation.

Common names.

None recorded.

Preliminary conservation assessment

( IUCN 2020). EOO (7,346 km2 - VU); AOO (44 km2 - EN). Lycianthes bambusarum is known from three localities; in light of this and the threats to forest habitats on New Guinea more generally, I propose a preliminary threat status of Endangered (EN [B1,2ab (iii, iv)]) for L. bambusarum .

Discussion.

Lycianthes bambusarum was distinguished by Bitter (1917) on the basis of its unifoliate sympodia, narrow leaves and 4-merous flowers; Symon (1985) recognised no other collections as this species, and described L. umbonata (as S. umbonatum ) on the basis of its 5-merous flowers with distinct “umbos” on the calyx. The calyx appendages in L. bambusarum are very evident in bud (as in the type of S. umbonatum ) but in flower are very small to non-existent (as shown in Bitter 1917: 92). Based on the otherwise widely overlapping descriptions I am here treating L. umbonata as a synonym of L. bambusarum .

Lycianthes bambusarum is similar to L. rostellata but differs from that species in being almost completely glabrous on stems and leaves, having unifoliate sympodia, and having heterostylous flowers. Lycianthes rostellata is distinctly pubescent, especially on the stems, with stiff, antrorse simple trichomes that often have multicellular bases, has small trowel-shaped minor leaves, and appears to have all bisexual flowers. The two taxa share narrow leaves and berries with numerous deeply notched seeds.

The type of Lycianthes bambusarum (as S. bambusarum ) was collected by C.L. Ledermann in his explorations of the central mountain ranges of what is now Papua New Guinea ( Ledermann 1919; Veldkamp et al. 1988; Takeuchi and Golman 2002). I have found no duplicates of this collection (Ledermann 12129), the original of which was cited as being in the herbarium in Berlin ( Bitter 1917). These areas have rarely been accessed since Ledermann’s collecting, and I have seen no specimens from Madang that correspond to L. bambusarum . The collection (Takeuchi et al. 11704) selected here as a neotype matches the protologue, is from a similar elevation in the same mountain range and has a number of duplicates that are widely distributed, including in Papua New Guinea (where the neotype sheet is held in LAE).

Specimens examined.

Papua New Guinea. Morobe: near Blue Point , Mt. Kaindi , Wau , 800 m, 24 Apr 1977, Conn & Kairo 142 (A, K); near Wengomanga, via Oiwa, Aseki Patrol Area , 11 Apr 1966, Craven & Schodde 1258 (A, K, L, LAE, US); Wau, Mount Kaindi , contour trail in forest, 2,390 m, 10 Jul 1977, Fallen 374 (L, LAE, MO); Tymne-Wago track, 457 m, 18 Mar 1963, Hartley 11434 (A, K, L, LAE); Aseki-Spreader Div., Menyamya subdistrict, 1,800 m, 8 Jan 1972, Stevens LAE-54766 (A, K, L, LAE, US); Ekuti Divide, Bulolo-Aseki road, 33 km WSW of Bulolo, 2,250 m, 17 Oct 1982, Streimann 9635 (A, E, K, L, LAE); Angabena Ridge, ca. 3 km from Aseki-Menyamya Rd. , Menyamya subdistrict, 1,675 m, 7 Jan 1972, Streimann & Stevens LAE-53892 (A, K, L, LAE); Aseki road from Bulolo , subdistrict Wau, 2,300 m, 29 Jul 1977, Symon 10632 (K, L, LAE, MO); Mount Kaindi, upper slopes of Mt. Kaindi, 2,000 m, 30 May 1984, Symon & Katik 13822 (K, L, LAE, MO); Aseki road below the crest, 31 May 1984, Symon & Katik 13829 (K, L, LAE, MO) .

Figures

Figure 4. Lycianthes bambusarum (Bitter) Bitter. Drawing by M. L. Szent-Ivany, first published in Symon (1985: fig. 23, as S. umbonatum Symon). Courtesy of the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium (Adelaide, South Australia), reproduced with permission.

Figure 5. Lycianthes bambusarum herbarium specimen. Papua New Guinea. Morobe: Conn & Kairo 142 (A). Courtesy of the Herbarium of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, reproduced with permission.

Figure 6. Distribution of Lycianthes bambusarum.