Abstract
A new species of Zephyranthes (Amaryllidaceae), growing in semi-arid areas of the High Plain of Bogotá, Colombia, is described and illustrated. We give notes on five other species present in Colombia: Z. albiella Traub, Z. carinata Herb., Z. puertoricensis Traub., Z. robusta (Sweet) Baker y Z. rosea (Spreng.) Lindl. The last four were registered for the first time for Colombia. We include a key for the identification of the species.
Key words: Amaryllidaceae, Colombia, Habranthus, Hippeastreae, new species, taxonomy, Zephyranthes.
Resumen
Se describe e ilustra una nueva especie de Zephyranthes (Amaryllidaceae) que crece en zonas áridas de la Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia. Se comentan otras cinco especies presentes en Colombia (Z. albiella Traub, Z. carinata Herb., Z. puertoricensis Traub., Z. robusta (Sweet) Baker y Z. rosea (Spreng.) Lindl., de las cuales, las últimas cuatro se registran para Colombia por primera vez. Se incluye una clave para la separación de las especies tratadas.
Palabras clave: Amaryllidaceae, Colombia, Habranthus, Hippeastreae, nueva especie, Taxonomía, Zephyranthes.
Introduction
Zephyranthes Herb. (Amaryllidaceae) is an American-Antillean genus with about 60 species, currently placed in the mostly American tribe Hippeastreae (Dahlgren & al., 1985; Meerow & Snijman, 1998; Meerow & al., 1999). Many Zephyranthes species are appreciated ornamentals, and are traditionally known as "rain lilies", due to their tendency to flower shortly after rainy periods (Christian, 1999; Fellers, 1996; Mabberley, 1997). A part of the species formerly treated within Zephyranthes have now been transferred to the other Hippeastrean genera Habranthus Herb, (about 40 species distributed around subtropical South America), Pyrolirion Herb, (four species from Peru and Bolivia), and Aidema Ravenna (six species from Central and South America). Nevertheless, generic limits within this plant group are still unclear (Sealy, 1937; Uphof, 1946;Traub, 1958; Huzinker, 1967; Ravenna, 1971; Arroyo, 1990; Arroyo & Leuenberger, 1996; Lopes-Ferrari & Espejo-Serna, 2002; Ravenna, 2003).
The very subtle differences between genera are based on spathe characters, the position of the flower (erect, suberect or declínate), the--sometimes not very obvious (a)symmetry of the corolla, the insertion of the anther filaments either at the corolla tube base (Habranthus) or above the tube (Zephyranthes), the number of different anther filament lengths (two or four, with the anthers either linear or arched), the either declínate or recurved style, and the number of seeds per locule in the capsule. In order to facilitate the recognition, and for practical reasons, we treated all the taxa of this group as species of Zephyranthes, in some cases indicating the combinations associated to generic transfers in the synonymy.
Zephyranthes in Colombia
From Colombia, only the publication of Z. albiella was known, described from plants of Cundinamarca (Traub, 1950). Furthermore, a few imprecise references exist of "Z. tubispatha Herb.", without indication of herbarium collections (Bailey, 1939; Standley & Steyermark, 1952). From the neighboring countries, nine species have been registered from Peru (Macbryde, 1936; Brako & Zarucchi, 1993), three or four from Panama (Woodson & Schery, 1965; Spencer, 1986; D'Arcy, 1987), and a single one for both Ecuador and Venezuela (Traub, 1958; Meerow, 1990).
In...