Polylepis Ruiz & Pavon (1794:80)

Boza Espinoza, Tatiana Erika & Kessler, Michael, 2022, A monograph of the genus Polylepis (Rosaceae), PhytoKeys 203, pp. 1-274 : 1

Polylepis Ruiz & Pavon (1794:80)

Type.

Polylepis racemosa Ruiz & Pavón.

Description.

Trees or shrubs 1-32 m tall; bark shredding, multilayered with thin exfoliating layers; branches twisted showing a striking arrangement of the leaves, young shoots with leaves usually all closely clustered at the top, causing a shrub-like growth, while the basal internodes stretch rather significantly afterwards. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate with 1-7 pairs of lateral leaflets, obtrullate in outline, 1.3-19.5 cm long, 0.6-10.7 cm wide; rachises lanate, pannose, sericeous, tomentose, villous or glabrous; point of leaflet attachment with a tuft of long hairs; stipular sheaths apically acute, truncate or spurred, glabrous to densely covered with lanate, tomentose or villous hairs on the other surface; leaflets elliptic, ovate or obovate in outline, 0.3-5.4 cm long, 0.2-2.0 cm wide; margins entire, revolute, crenate to serrate, apically acute to deeply emarginate, attenuate, cuneate or unequally cordate, upper leaflet surfaces glabrous or sparsely to densely lanate, pilose, sericeous or tomentose; lower leaflet surfaces covered with very short pannose hairs, pannose mixed with another type of hairs or sparsely to densely lanate, pilose, sericeous, strigose, tomentose or villous. Inflorescences axillar, simple rarely branched, upright or pendant to 36.0 cm long, bearing 1-83 flowers; floral bracts 2.1-15.8 mm long, narrowly triangular. Flowers hermaphroditic; sepals 3-4; stamens 5-27, anthers orbicular with a dense tuft of straight white hairs in the upper half; styles fimbriate, 0.9-4.9 mm long, ovary inferior; carpel 1, ovule 1. Fruit indehiscent achene, fusiform turbinate with protuberances, flattened-spines, irregular flattened ridges, thick wings and ridges or thin wings, glabrous to densely sericeous, tomentose or villous, 1.7-15.1 mm long, 1.3-10.1 mm wide including spines.