Leaf colour patterns, vegetative and sexual reproduction of Episcia ...

espectively. Any explicit conclusion cannot be drawn. These statements rather point towards
melittophilous syndrome though.
Fruit Development
Fruits are flowers in the state of seed maturity (Leins 2000). In gesneriads two different fruit
types occur: dehiscent and indehiscent fruits, whereby the dehiscent dry capsular fruit represents
the more primitive type (Weber 2004). The range of dispersal is from autochory, anemochory
over ombrohydrochory to zoochory. Skog (1978) describes the fruit of Episcia lilacina as fleshy
capsule. Residual are questions about the fruit development and the kind of distribution.
Results: After a successful pollination fruit development starts in the course of just a few
days. The carpels form a greenish to reddish coloured, globular, pilose capsule that is surrounded
by the persistent calyx (Fig. 28). The caspule is bivalved and fleshy.
Such capsules are green when part of green plants without red leaf patterns. The fruit of all
colour morphs is reddish and no opening lines are visible. The calyx grows neither in length nor
does it change its colour. The inside of the capsule is dark brown to dark red. Seeds are globular,
shiny, mostly reddish, rarely white.
Two days after the withering of the flower it can be unmistakeably seen whether a fruit has
developed or not. At this point the young fruit is covered completely by the calyx. At the
beginning the fruit broadens a little bit faster than it grows in length. After approximately two
weeks it is 5 mm (±2,5 mm) in diameter and has reached a length of 6 mm (±3mm). At this point
the length starts to increase while the diameter of the fruit further on just slowly widens. After
ten more days the diameter is 8 mm (±3mm) and its length 7 mm (±1mm). In summary, it can be
said that in the course of 25 days of observation the fruit grows with an average of 5,5 mm in
width as well as 4 mm in length.
While the fruit development was not finished yet, it could not be observed until the end
because the stay in Costa Rica came to an end at this point. Thus neither dehiscence nor the way
the seeds spread could be examined.
Discussion: The ripening of a fruit can take a couple of weeks or even months. Fruits of
Cyrtandra grandiflora (Gesneriaceae) for e.g. need approximately five month to ripe (Reolofs 1979).
Fruit development of Episcia lilacina could only be observed for around four weeks. Presumably,
it would have taken a few weeks more for the fruit to actually become ripe. Wiehler (1983)
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