Gaertnera luteocarpa Jongkind 2015, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Jongkind, Carel Christiaan Hugo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Magnoliopsida
Gentianales
Rubiaceae
Gaertnera
Gaertnera luteocarpa

description: Gaertnera luteocarpa Jongkind sp. nov.
urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77147376-1
Figs 1–2, 4
Gaertnera sp. A, Hawthorne & Jongkind, Woody plants of Western African forests: a guide to the forest trees, shrubs and lianes from Senegal to Ghana: 646 (2006).
Diagnosis
Resembling G. spicata K.Schum., with almost similar spicate inflorescences, but differing by its yellow, not red, fruits, ruminate endosperm and by the absence of setae on the edge of the stipular tube.
Etymology
The species is named after its yellow fruits.
Type
IVORY COAST. Région du Bas-Sassandra, km 41 Sassandra-San Pedro road, fl. bud and fr., 16 Nov. 1968, Breteler 6052 (holo-: WAG; iso-: BR, K, MO n.v., PRE n.v., W n.v.)
Description
Shrub 2–3 m high. Most leaves distichous and evenly arranged on plagiotrophic branches. Twigs glabrous, with a pronounced ridge around the petiole base. Leaves glabrous; blade 6–25 × 2–7 cm, elliptic to elliptic oblong, apex acuminate, base cuneate; midrib prominent at both sides; secondary veines 6–12 pairs, tertiary venetion conspicuously subparallel; petiole 0.5–6 cm long. Stipules tubular, ending in 4 lobes, glabrous or pale hairy, tube c. 2 cm long. Inflorescence terminal, densely flowered, not or very shortly branched, congested; bracts 2–5 mm long, triangular to lanceolate. Flower 5-merous, almost sessile; calyx cup-shaped, truncate, c. 1 mm high, glabrous or with small hairs on the edge; corolla white, glabrous outside, with acute apex in bud, tube 9 × 2–3 mm, white hairy inside above the insertion of the stamens, glabrous below this point, hairs exserted from the mouth, lobes 5 mm long, glabrous; stamens completely included in the corolla tube; ovary superior. Drupes subglobose with flattened apex, smooth, 2–2.5 cm in diameter, yellow, pulp whitish and sweet, with 2 pyrenes; pyrenes more or less plano-convex, 10 mm in diameter and 5 mm in cross-section, rugose, endosperm ruminated.
Distribution and habitat
Undergrowth of evergreen lowland forest. Known from the south-east of Liberia to the south-west of Ghana.
Conservation status
The “Extent of Occurrence” (EOO) is 20 649 km 2 and the “Area of Occupancy” (AOO) is 36 km 2, the first counts as “Near Threathened” and the second as “Endangered”. The AOO is based on a cell width of 2 km. The calculation of the EOO as one continuous area is (much) too high looking at the big gap between the western occurrences and the eastern ones. Most forest that could be found inside the EOO a century ago has been removed since. All eastern specimens were collected in the Ankasa Reserve and that is the only place where the species is not rare. Because G. luteocarpa sp. nov. is, when flowering or fruiting, a conspicuous plant it should not be easy overlooked in the forest and it can be expected that it is really a rare species that is only becoming more rare because of the ongoing deforestation. Therefore I propose “Endangered” for this new species (B1 & B2 ab(iii) IUCN 2015).
Note
The plagiotrophic branching with distichous leaves has been seen by the author in the field for all Gaertnera species he encountered in West Africa.
description: Published as part of Jongkind, Carel Christiaan Hugo, 2015, Description of Gaertnera luteocarpa (Gentianales: Rubiaceae), with two subspecies, a new forest shrub species from Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana, pp. 1-8 in European Journal of Taxonomy 126 on pages 3-4, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2015.126, http://zenodo.org/record/3780350