Lycianthes wollastonii (Wernham) A.R.Bean, Austrobaileya 6(3): 568. 2003.

Knapp, Sandra, 2022, A revision of Lycianthes (Solanaceae) in Australia, New Guinea, and the Pacific, PhytoKeys 209, pp. 1-134 : 1

18. Lycianthes wollastonii (Wernham) A.R.Bean, Austrobaileya 6(3): 568. 2003.

Figs 54 , 55

Solanum wollastonii Wernham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Bot. 9: 120. 1916. Type. Indonesia. Papua: Mount Carstenz [Puncak Jaya = Mount Jaya] "Camp VIII? To IX, 4,900 to 5,500 ft" [along Bandarong River], Aug 1912, C.B. Kloss s.n. (lectotype, designated by Symon 1985, pg. 69 [as holotype]: BM [BM001014583]).

Type.

Based on Solanum wollastonii Wernham.

Description.

Slender woody climber or epiphyte, to ca. 3 m tall (long); stems terete, glabrous, flushed with purple (fide Mustaqim et al. 2022); new growth minutely papillate, soon glabrescent; bark of older stems pale tan, peeling. Sympodial units difoliate, the leaves geminate, the leaves of a pair differing in size and sometimes in shape. Leaves simple; blade of major leaves 6-11 cm long, 2-4 cm side, elliptic, somewhat oblique, widest at the middle, discolorous, membranous; adaxial surfaces shiny, glabrous, the venation impressed, the midrib keeled; abaxial surfaces paler, glabrous, the veins drying reddish gold; principal veins 4-6 pairs, impressed above, reddish golden below, glabrous; base acute to cuneate; margins entire, somewhat revolute; apex abruptly acuminate with an elongate drip-tip 1-2 cm long; petioles 0.3-0.6 cm long, glabrous; blades of minor leaves 1.9-2.7 cm long, 1.5-2 cm wide, elliptic to narrowly elliptic, texture and pubescence like that of the major leaves; base acute; margins entire; apex acute or rounded; petioles ca. 0.2 cm long, glabrous. Inflorescences axillary 1-3(5) flowered fascicles, with only a single flower open at a time, glabrous; pedicels 1.8-2.2 cm long, ca. 0.5 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 1.5 mm in diameter at the apex, spreading and nodding from weight of flowers, green flushed with purple (fide Mustaqim et al. 2022), glabrous, articulated at the base; pedicel scars tightly packed in the leaf axils. Buds narrowly ellipsoid, the corolla strongly exserted from the calyx tube before anthesis. Flowers 5-merous, apparently perfect (only long-styled flowers seen). Calyx tube 3-3.5 mm long, 4-4.5 mm in diameter, openly cup-shaped, pale purple, glabrous, with 5 triangular appendages 1-2 mm long emerging 0.75-1 mm below the rim and perpendicular to the calyx tube, the rim entire. Corolla 1.6-2 cm in diameter, white, deeply stellate, lobed nearly to the base, interpetalar tissue present, the lobes ca. 10 mm long, ca. 2.5 mm wide, spreading and slightly cupped, glabrous, minutely papillate at the slightly cucullate tips. Stamens equal; filament tube minute; free portion of the filaments ca. 1 mm long, glabrous; anthers 4.5-5 mm long, ellipsoid, yellow, poricidal at the tips, the pores tear-drop shaped, lengthening to slits with age. Ovary conical, glabrous; style ca. 7.5 mm long, straight, glabrous; stigma bilobed to bifid with the lobes ca. 0.2 mm long, the surfaces minutely papillate. Fruit a globose berry (described from Mustaqim et al. 2022), ca. 0.7 cm in diameter, green (immature?), the pericarp glabrous, matte, opaque; fruiting pedicels to 3 cm long, pendent, bright purple (dull violet) especially towards the enlarged apex, glabrous; fruiting calyx a cup subtending the fruit, tightly adhering to the basal part of the berry, the appendages fleshy and somewhat enlarged, slightly backwards pointing. Seeds and stone cells not seen. Chromosome number not known.

Distribution

(Fig. 56 ). Lycianthes wollastonii is endemic to the island of New Guinea; it is known only from Puncak Jaya (Mount Carstenz) in Indonesia (Papua).

Ecology and habitat.

Lycianthes wollastonii is a plant of mossy montane forests, growing between 1,500 and 1,800 m elevation.

Common names.

None recorded.

Preliminary conservation assessment

( IUCN 2020). EOO (0 km2 - CR); AOO (8 km2 - CR). Lycianthes wollastonii is known from a single locality. Mustaqim et al. (2022) assessed L. wollastonii as Endangered (EN B2ab(iii)) due to its small range in an area threatened by logging and mining. They did not assign a more threatened status due to the number of populations assumed to be two (their collection and the type), however, although the type locality is somewhat imprecise, it can be pinpointed to a small area using the description of the Wollaston expedition itinerary ( Kloss 1916) and is thus distinct from the collection locality cited by Mustaqim et al. (2022). I consider the species should be assigned a threat status of Critically endangered (CR) due to its narrow distribution and the threats for human alteration of the environment. This species merits further collecting and population survey.

Discussion.

Until recently ( Mustaqim et al. 2022) Lycianthes wollastonii was known only from Cecil Boden Kloss’s type collection, made on the expedition led by Arthur Wollaston to "Snow Mountains" ( Kloss 1916). Their collection, made in 2018 on the ascent of Mount Jaya, is the first fruiting record for this species and confirms both its distinctness from other New Guinea Lycianthes and its rarity and restricted distribution. I have described the fruits and associated characters from Mustaqim et al. (2022); colour of mature fruits is still not known. Wernham (1916) described L. wollastonii (as S. wollastonii ) as an epiphyte, but Mustaqim et al. (2022) described it as a slender shrub; Kloss could have mistaken the habit due to the dense covering of moss on the stems, or L. wollastonii may indeed sometimes grow on the branches of other plants in its wet cloud forest habitat as do other Solanaceae (e.g., S. gonyrhachis S.Knapp of Bolivia, see Knapp 2002).

Lycianthes wollastonii is somewhat like L. lucens in its glabrous leaves, triangular calyx appendages held perpendicular to the calyx tube (see figure 1 in Mustaqim et al. 2022) and large flowers. It differs from L. lucens in its homostylous (to be confirmed) flowers (heterostylous in L. lucens ), anthers 4-4.5 mm long (versus 2-2.5 mm long in L. lucens ) and minor leaves differing significantly in shape from the major leaves (similar in shape, but not in size in L. lucens ).

The large flowers with narrow corolla lobes of Lycianthes wollastonii are somewhat similar to those of L. rostellata . The two species can be distinguished by stem pubescence (absent in L. wollastonii , of stiff, antrorse trichomes with multicellular bases in L. rostellata ) and calyx appendage morphology (absent in L. rostellata , triangular in L. wollastonii ).

Specimens examined.

Indonesia. Papua: Timika Regency, Mount Jaya, Tembagabura , Borobudur , 2,090 m, 21 Nov 2018, Mustaqim & Manurang 2213 (BO) .

Names (designations) not validly published

Lycianthes amblycarpa Bitter, not validly published; herbarium name in Bitter’s hand on undated annotation label on Versteeg 1351 (L.2859655) = L. impar .

Lycianthes pliorhachis Bitter, not validly published herbarium name in Bitter’s hand on undated annotation label on Versteeg 1137 (L.2881336) = L. impar .

Solanum peranomalum Wernham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Bot. 9(1): 119. 1916, isonym of S. peranomalum Wernham ex Ridl. = L. peranomala .

Solanum urbanum Morong var. typicum Chodat, Bull. Soc. Bot. Genève, ser. 2, 8: 151. 1916, not validly published (Art. 24.3, Turland et al. 2018). = L. rantonnetii .

Figures

Figure 54. Lycianthes wollastonii (Wernham) A. R. Bean. Drawing by M. L. Szent-Ivany, first published in Symon (1985: fig. 25, as S. wollastonii Wernham). Courtesy of the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium (Adelaide, South Australia), reproduced with permission.

Figure 55. Lycianthes wollastonii herbarium specimen. Indonesia. Papua: Kloss s. n. (holotype of S. wollastonii, BM 001014583). Courtesy of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, reproduced with permission.

Figure 56. Distribution of Lycianthes wollastonii.