Vines and Climbing Plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

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Vines and Climbing Plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
Flowers unisexual, in terminal or axillary
panicles, pendulous, 7-15 cm long, the axes
pubescent or glabrous; bracts and bracteoles not
keeled, acute or short-acuminate at the apex, the
bracteoles smaller than the tepals. Tepals creamcolored
or whitish; ovate or oblong, with a tuft of
undulate hairs at the base, 0.5-0.8 mm long in
the staminate flowers, oblong, 0.9-1.1 mm long
in the pistillate flowers; stamens 5, the filaments
4. PFAFFIA
unequal. Capsule ellipsoid, membranaceous, ca.
1 mm long; seeds reddish brown, shiny.
Phenology: Flowering and fruiting from
September to May.
Status: Native, common.
Distribution: In disturbed areas at lower or
middle elevations. Also on Desecheo and Vieques;
the Lesser Antilles, Colombia, and Venezuela.
Public forests: Ceiba, El Yunque, Maricao, Río
Abajo, Toro Negro, Tortuguero, and Vega.
Erect or clambering herbs, scandent shrubs, or twining lianas. Leaves opposite, petiolate; blades
simple, stipules absent. Flowers bisexual, arranged in glomerules, spikes, or axillary or terminal panicles
on short axillary branches; bracts and bracteoles persistent. Tepals 5, free, concave, with a tuft of hairs
at the base on the outer surface or the hairs borne on the pedicel; stamens 5, the filaments united at the
base to form a short staminal tube; interstaminal appendages present or absent; ovary superior, unilocular,
uniovulate, ovoid, the stigma bilobed, sessile or subsessile. Fruit an indehiscent utricle, covered by the
perianth. A genus of approximately 35 species of neotropical distribution.
1. Pfaffia aurata (Mart.) Borsch, Novon 5: 230.
1995.
Fig. 17. G-I
BASIONYM: Trommsdorffia aurata Mart.
SYNONYMS: Trommsdorffia argentata Mart.
Iresine argentata (Mart.) D. Dietr.
Achyranthes nodosa Bertero ex Mart. (pro syn.)
Achyranthes argentata (Mart.) Moq.
Iresine argentata var. latifolia Suess.
Pfaffia grandiflora sensu Alain, non (Hook.) R. E. Fr.
Twining liana, 15-20 m in length, with
numerous pendulous branches. Stems cylindrical,
with swollen nodes, densely silvery- pubescent
when young, glabrous and lenticellate when
mature, up to 10 cm in diameter; bark fissured,
brown-cream; cross section of the stem with bands
of vascular tissue alternating with very narrow
bands of parenchymatous tissue. Leaves opposite;
blades 3-10 × 2.7-4.2 cm, elliptical, ovate or
lanceolate, chartaceous to coriaceous, the apex
acuminate, acute, obtuse, or retuse, the base obtuse
or rounded, sometimes unequal, the margins
entire, slightly undulate and revolute; upper
surface dull, glabrous or puberulous; lower surface
dull, glabrous or puberulous, with slightly
prominent venation; petioles slender, puberulous,
3-10 mm long. Flowers in panicles at the tips of
short axillary branches, ascending, up to 30 cm
long, the axes strigose or tomentose; bracts and
bracteoles widely ovate to deltoid, hyaline, villous
when young, 0.5-0.7 mm long. Tepals 5, creamcolored,
oblong, 1.7-2.2 mm long, with a tuft of
white, erect hairs at the base, these of the same
length as or slightly longer than the tepals;
stamens 5, the filaments alternating with short
obtuse or rounded appendages, ca. 0.1 mm long;
stigma bilobed, turbinate, papillose.
Phenology: Collected in flower in January.
Status: Native, locally common.
Distribution: In moist areas along the
Cordillera Central, along rivers and at the base
of mogotes in the zone where they occur. Also in
the Lesser Antilles, Panama, Colombia,
Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil.
Public forests: Maricao and Río Abajo.
Commentary: This species was originally
described for Puerto Rico as Trommsdorffia
argentata by Martius in 1826 and then transferred
to Iresine argentata. Studies by T. Borsch in 1995
consider T. argentata as belonging within the
variation observed in Pfaffia aurata sensu lato
and therefore as a synonym of the latter species.