EBRACTEATUM De Candolle, 1828
Synonym : Sedastrum ebracteatum (De Candolle) Rose (1905)
Distribution : Mexico (widespread from Durango to Puebla and Oaxaca)
Description (according to IHSP, 2003) :
Perennial herbs with dense rosettes and secondary shoots near the base of the flowering branches.
Roots ± fusiform and thickish.
Leaves of the rosette alternate, suborbicular to spatulate-oblong, rounded to obtuse or subacute, pubescent, light greenish, 10 – 42 x 8 – 28 mm.
Leaves of flowering branches ovate to oblong, ± cordate, pubescent 4 – 50 mm long (larger than those of the rosette), flowering branches erect, 17 – 25 cm.
Inflorescences lax panicles.
Flowers 5-merous, sessile, with musky scent, sepals broadly sessile, basally connate, equal or unequal, ovate, acute or obtuse, glabrous or minutely pubescent, 3 – 5 x 1.8 – 3.6 mm, erect, petals basally connate, ovate or elliptic-ovate, acute, mucronate, white, ± 6 mm, recurved, anthers yellow.
Cytology : 2n = 40, 41, 80, 81, 82, 160, 161, 180 ± 10, 180 – 200, 200 ± 2, 210 ± 2, 210 – 220, 200 ± 10, 230 – 240, 236 ± 3, 240, 250 ± 10, 280 – 300.
Fröderström distinguished 2 varieties : var. rubricaule with sepals of equal length, and var. ebracteatum with unequal sepals. Here, the classification of Clausen is followed.
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