Revision of Passiflora Subgenus Decaloba ... - Passion Flowers

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species from other members of supersection Cieca. MacDougal further
separated P. xiikzodz into two subspecies, P. xiikzodz ssp. xiikzodz and P.
xiikzodz ssp. itzensis. Though he found numerous differences in the flowers of
the two subspecies and artificial cross-pollinations between them proved
unsuccessful, he felt that more information was needed to support the
recognition of two separate species. I recognize the two species, P. xiikzodz and
P. itzensis, not only based upon the detailed studies of MacDougal (1992), but
also because my morphological and molecular analyses of the taxa support their
recognition (see chapters 4 and 6).
Passiflora itzensis and P. xiikzodz are identical vegetatively, but the flowers
are quite different. The flowers of P. itzensis lack or have a greatly reduced dark
reddish purple androgynophore, are smaller, possess fewer filaments in the outer
and second coronal rows, an androecium and gynoecium with reddish purple
pigmentation, very short styles, stigmas with their receptive surfaces presented
distally, and anthers that do not flip over to an extrorse position after the flower
buds open but move only slightly from the original introrse position to present
their pollen distally. In the herbarium, it is not necessary to have perfectly
preserved flowers to differentiate between P. itzensis and P. xiikzodz, as the
floral stipe of P. itzensis is commonly shorter than that of P. xiikzodz.
Incidentally, in the dried flowers of both P. itzensis and P. xiikzodz, the coronal
filaments appear nearly black.
MacDougal noticed the occasional appearance of one or two small but well-
formed petals in cultivated material of P. itzensis (MacDougal 4633) (MacDougal,