126 STAND ley: new species of rondeletia 



BOTANY. — A new species of Rondeletia from Mexico.^ Paul 

 C. Standley, National Museum, 



I In an interesting collection of plants received recently from 



\ Dr. B. P. Reko, of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, by the U. S. 

 National Museum, are specimens of a handsome rubiaceous 

 plant referable to the genus Rondeletia. The plant offers so 

 many characters not found in other species as to suggest a new- 

 generic type, but the specie 5 of Rondeletia already known show a 

 remarkable range of variation for the family Rubiaceae, and the 

 present plant is perhaps not more abnormal than some of the 

 Cuban species, such as R. tinifolia Griseb. and R. correifoUa 

 Griseb. 



Rondeletia Rekoi Standley, sp. nov. 



Branchlets stout or slender, obtusely tetragonous, densely and per- 

 sistently white-tomentose, with a close tomentum; stipules linear 

 oblong, 6 to 9 mm. long, bidentate at the apex, erect, persistent, densely 

 tomentose outside on the lower half, glabrate and green above; leaves 

 opposite, the petioles very stout, 0.5 to 1.5 cm. long, white-tomentose, 

 the blades ovate or elliptic-ovate, 8.5 to 19 cm. long, 3 to 8.5 cm. wide, 

 rounded and short-decurrent at the base, very acute or subacuminate 

 at the apex, subchartaceous, bright-green above, lustrous, scabrous 

 with short slender curved hairs, the intermediate veins very promi- 

 nent, finely reticulate, beneath densely covered with a close white 

 tomentum, the costa prominent, the lateral veins slender, about 14 on 

 each side, subarcuate, the margin plane or subrevolute; inflorescence 

 terminal (a pair of cymes present at the base of the peduncle), the 

 peduncles stout, 8 to 9 cm. long, the rachis 6 to 9 cm. long, bearing 

 numerous short-pedunculate bifid cymes, the branches of these 1.5 to 

 2.5 cm. long, the flowers sessile, secund, the bractlets oval or oblong, 

 obtuse, green, glabrate, about equahng the calyx-tube; calyx-tube 

 densely white-tomentose, the 4 lobes oblong or oval, about 1 mm. 

 long, rounded at the apex, green, glabrate, spreading; corolla white- 

 tomentose outside, the tube stout, 5.5 to 7 mm., long, glabrous in the 

 throat, the 4 lobes rounded, 2 mm. long, undulate; anthers sessile, in- 

 cluded; capsule 3.5 to 4 mm. broad, didymous-globose, densely white- 

 tomentose; seeds minute, pale-brown, angulate. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 867145, collected at 

 Cafetal Las Pilas (Cerro Espino), Oaxaca, Mexico, altitude 400 meters, 

 October 10, 1917, by Dr. B. P. Reko (no. 3490). 



^ Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



