Diagnostic description ³

Mikania stevensiana Britton, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 43: 458. 1916.

Fig. 38. D-F

Herbaceous vine, twining, 4-5 m in length. Stems slender, striate or angular, glabrous or puberulous. Leaves opposite; blades 3-5 × 1.9-4 cm, 3-lobed, triangular-ovate or less frequently 5-lobed, coriaceous, brittle, aromatic, trinerved, the apex acuminate or acute, the base subcordiform, the margins dentate, revolute, ciliate; upper surface dark green, shiny, with short bulbous hairs that give it a rough texture, the venation sunken; lower surface slightly shiny, puberulous, with prominent venation; petioles ca. 3 cm long, sulcate, puberulous; pseudostipules forming a ring of filiform segments, deciduous. Capitula 3, forming pedunculate cymes that form a terminal corymbiform cyme; subinvolucral bracts oblanceolate, puberulous, 3-3.5 mm long; phyllaries oblong, 6-7 mm long, green or with a reddish tinge. Corollas white, infundibuliform, ca. 6.5 mm long; anthers inserted; stigmatic branches long-exserted. Achenes cuneiform, ca. 5 mm long; pappus whitish, ca. 7 mm long, scabrous.

Phenology: Flowering in August and from December to February.

Status: Endemic to Puerto Rico, known from very few localities.

Selected Specimens Examined: Acevedo-Rdgz., P. 7059; 7169.

Distribution ⁴

Distribution: Uncommon in moist forests on serpentine soils.

Public forest: Maricao.

Sources and Credits

1. (c) Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/services/media.php?env=botany&irn=10350774
2. (c) Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/services/media.php?env=botany&irn=10350772
3. (c) Pedro Acevedo-Rodríguez, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/28435139
4. (c) Pedro Acevedo-Rodríguez, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/28435703

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