Wigandia kunthii Choisy, 1833.

Verloove, Filip, 2021, New records in vascular plants alien to Tenerife (Spain, Canary Islands), Biodiversity Data Journal 9, pp. 62878-62878 : 62878

Wigandia kunthii Choisy, 1833.

Wigandia kunthii Mém. Soc. Phys. Genève 6: 116. 1833.

Wigandia kunthii Syn. (?): W. urens (Ruiz & Pav.) Kunth, Nov. Gen. Sp. (quarto ed.) 3: 127. 1818 [1819].

Distribution

TENERIFE: Los Silos, Barranco de Las Guardias, close to TF 42, roadside, 18.11.2016, F. Verloove 12689 (BR). https://observation.org/observation/205287066/

Notes

This species, a native of the Caribbean and Central America, is sometimes grown as an ornamental, just like Wigandia caracasana Kunth. The latter is locally naturalised in the northern parts of Tenerife, especially near Puerto de la Cruz. It is increasing lately. W. kunthii was also recorded in Tenerife in 2016, apparently for the first time in the Canary Islands. A small colony, consisting of few individuals, is naturalised in the valley of Barranco de Las Guardias, in Los Silos.

Wigandia kunthii is much reminiscent of W. caracasana . Both mostly differ in the type of indumentum: the former is a shaggy-strigous plant, with pungent stinging long bristles up to 4 mm long and green lower leaf surfaces, whereas the latter has a shorter, glandular-viscid pubescence and paler lower leaf surfaces ( Anonymous 2015). Although strikingly different in leaf indumentum, plants with more or less intermediate characters have been observed in Puerto de la Cruz. It is unclear whether these represent hybrids or rather indicate a weak separation between these two species.

Wigandia kunthii is sometimes considered conspecific with the Peruvian species W. urens (Ruiz & Pav.) Kunth. These two species have the characteristic stinging hairs in common, hence the specific epithet of the latter (' Wigandia urens ').

According to Anonymous (2015), Wigandia kunthii is the most widely naturalised species of the genus. In Italy, both are locally naturalised, like in Tenerife.