Gesneria aspera Urb. & Ekman

Gesneria aspera Urban & Ekman

Gesneria aspera Urban & Ekman in Urban, Ark. Bot. 20A(5):49, 1926.

Shrubs or small trees: stems woody, erect, bark when young reddish and invested with numerous reddish, few-celled patent trichomes, becoming gray-brown and glabrous, resinous at apex, internodes 0.1–1.9 cm long; branches many, 3 mm in diameter at 10 cm below apex, lenticels erumpent, nodes slightly swollen.

Leaves approximate to alternate: petioles terete near node, becoming flattened near base of blade, 1–4 mm long, ca 1 mm wide, reddish and covered by the patent glandular hairs; blades ovate to obovate, 1.5–2.4 cm long, 0.8–1.4 cm wide, stiff and coriaceous, base rounded to obtuse, margin entire near the base, becoming crenate-dentate toward the acute apex, adaxial surface bullate, light green, asperate from numerous stiff bulbous-based white hairs, lateral veins 3 to 5, slightly immersed, abaxial surface tawny except for the reddish prominent veins, pilose.

Inflorescences axillary, 1-flowered, about twice as long as the subtending leaves: peduncles 1.8–3.0 cm long, 0.3–0.4 mm in diameter, purplish-brown, pilose; bracts 2, at the base of the peduncle when young, caducous, linear, to 2 mm long, reddish, pilose; floral tube turbinate, ca 2 mm long, ca 2 mm in diameter at apex, red and pilose; calyx erect, lobes 5, barely connate at base, linear-lanceolate, 2–6 mm long, ca 1 mm wide at base, dark red, shortly and densely pilose; corolla tube hypocrateriform, 1.1–2.2 cm long, ca 0.3 cm wide at middle, outside red except orange-yellow near base, shortly and patently pilose, inside yellow with reddish lines, glabrous with prominent veins, limb patent, 7–9 mm broad, lobes orbicular, ca 5 mm long, ca 4 mm wide, upper lobes broader and slightly bifid, margin erose, glandular; stamens 4, adnate to the base of the corolla, filaments ca 15 mm long, yellowish, glabrous, anthers oblong, ca 1 mm long, coherent until anthesis, pollen yellow-white, staminode 4 mm long, lacking anther; ovary inferior, becoming half-inferior following fertilization, reddish, pilose at apex, disc annular, swollen, style ca 10 mm long, yellow, shortly pubescent, stigma clavate.

Capsule shortly turbinate, extending ca 2.5 mm above calyx attachment, 5–6 mm wide, becoming gray on drying, costae 5, slightly prominent; seeds fusiform, striated, 0.6–0.7 mm long, 0.1–0.2 mm wide, brownish.

TYPE-COLLECTION.—Massif de la Selle, Morne Cabaio, Haiti, E. Ekman H1550 (S, holotype, Figure 28a; EHH, G, IJ, K, NY, S, US, isotypes).

DISTRIBUTION AND ECOLOGY.—Gesneria aspera has been found only in southeastern Haiti in the la Selle mountains on Morne Cabaio, where it grows in fissures in limestone cliffs at 1900–2000 m (Figure 27). Flowering specimens have been collected only in August.

SPECIMENS EXAMINED: HAITI. DÉPARTMENT DE. L’OUEST: Massif de la Selle, Morne Cabaio, 1900–2000 m, 20 August 1924, E. Ekman H1550 (S, holotype of Gesneria aspera Urban & Ekman; EHH, G, IJ, K, NY, S, US 2 sheets, isotypes).