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BOTANICAL EXPLORATION IN VENEZUELA - I 139
7. Flowers secund; ovary slender, 18 mm. long
B, secunda.
7. Flowers not secund; ovary stout, 5-6 ram. long
fl.
vestita.
2. Leaf-blades ligulate, rounded and apiculate (no new species
under this heading).
Connellia caricifolia L. B. Smith, sp. nov.
Caulescens, ramosa, florifera 17 cm. alta; caule ultra 1 dm. longo,
2-3 mm. diametro; foliis dense quaquaversis, 6 cm. longis, omnino
inermibus, vaginis late ovatis, 2 cm. longis, glabris, sulcatis,
laminis linearibus, 4 mm. latis, supra glabris, subtus perobscure
punctulato-lepidotis, marginibus albis cartilagineis except is utrinque
viridibus; scapo erecto, 2-2.5 mm. diametro, brunneo, lucido; scapi
bracteis internodia superantibus sed scapum baud obtengentibus,
late ovatis, lucidis, infimis caudatis; inflorescentia simplicissima,
laxe perpauciflora, glabra; bracteis florigeris late ellipticis, apiculatis,
ad 14 mm. longis, pedicellos graciles superantibus; floribus
erectis; sepalis ellipticis, ca. 12 mm. longis, tenuibus; petalis 2 cm.
longis, unguiculatis , roseis, lamina suborbiculari; staminibus styloque
inclusis; ovario supero (Fig. 20, a-b).
Type collected on exposed surface of morros, summit of Mount
Roraima, on northwest portion north and northwest of Summit Camp,
state of Boh'var, alt. 2620-2740 m., September 27, 1944, Julian A.
Steyermark 58846. The flowers are very similar to those of C f
Quelchii, also from Mount Roraima, but the leaves are weak, glabrous
above and prominently white -margined where those of C.
Quelchii are stiff, densely lanate above and essentially uniform
in texture.
With considerable misgiving
I am restoring the genus Connellia,
because it
represents the least objectionable of several awkward
choices. To include C. Augustae, C Quelchii and the two new
species here proposed, in Puya, involves too much contradiction in
the key to genera. The technical characters of capsule-dehiscence
and seed-appendages place Connellia much closer to Lindmania than
to P uya which it more closely resembles in habit.
To reduce Connellia to Lindmania would be logical, especially in
view of the intermediate position of Lindmania guianensis, but I
hesitate to do so until it is possible to establish the validity of
Lindmania as distinct from the earlier Cottendorfia. Lindmania
guianensis has the placentae practically as reduced as in Cottendorfia,
and the discovery of fruit of the latter may show that the
rather doubtful distinction on ovule-appendage is equally untenable.
Phylogenetically, Connellia appears to link Puya to Lindmania
but to be closer to the latter.