CORUANA   Garcia et al., 2016

Perennial  herb, glabrous, acaulescent or with an inconspicuous caudex, 3 - 8 cm long and 1 - 1.3 cm in diameter.

Rosette lax, 10 - 15 cm in diameter with 15 - 18 leaves.

Leaves fleshy, light-green to dark green in the median part and apex, leaf blade linear oblanceolate to spathulate, 8 - 16 x 2 - 2.5 cm, 0.5 - 1 cm thick at the base, margin entire, occasionally with a thin, red-colored line, apex acuminate, short mucronate, base narrowed to form a pseudo-petiole, 2 - 3 cm long, corrugated ventrally.

Inflorescence a paniculiform thyrse, 1 - 3 per rosette, 28 - 65 cm long and 0.3 - 0.5 cm wide at the base, with 1 - 4 secondary axes (cincinni), each with 1 - 4(-5) flowers, bracts spiralled, adpressed, green to yellowish-red, oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 0.8 - 7.2 x 0.6 - 3 cm, 1.2 - 1.5 mm thick in the median part and 7 - 8.5 mm at the base, base auriculate, soon caducous, pedicels (1.3-) 1.6 - 2.2 mm long and 2 - 3 mm thick.

Flowers : Calyx gamosepalous [ = sepals connate, forming a tube], star-shaped, the tube 1 - 1.5 mm long, lobes green, unequal, 6 - 9 x 3 - 4 mm, spreading to somewhat reflexed at anthesis, triangular-lanceolate, corolla pentagonal-conical in bud, cylindrical-urceolate at anthesis, petals 15 - 21 x 4 - 6.5 mm, fused for 1 - 1.5 mm at the base, lanceolate, carinate, tips mucronate, erect to slightly deflexed, colour whitish-yellow at the base, light-yellow to orange in the median part and orange-reddish at the tips, stamens with a pair of conical or dome-like appendages at the base, 0.2 - 0. 3 mm long....

E. coruana is morphologically similar to E. patriotica and E. purhepecha.

First published in PhytoKeys 75: 1 - 13. 2016.