Lycianthes purpusii
Not Known.
Lycianthes purpusii occurs in Mexico (Chiapas, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Veracruz), Belize (Toledo), Guatemala (Baja Verapaz, Izabal, Peten), and Honduras (Atlantida, Copan, and Yoro), in primary or secondary high forest or tropical dry forest, very rarely in cloud forest at the upper part of its elevational range, often on limestone, 80–1000 (1500) m in elevation.
Bitter G. 1919. Die Gattung Lycianthes. Abhandlungen herausgegeban vom Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein zu Bremen 24 [preprint]: 292–520.
Dean, E., J. Poore, M. A. Anguiano-Constante, M. H. Nee, T. Starbuck, A. Rodrigues, and M. Conner. 2020.
IUCN [Standards, Petitions Subcommittee] (2019) Guidelines for using the IUCN red list categories and criteria. version 12. Prepared by the Standards and Petitions Subcommittee in February 2019. http://jr.iucnredlist.org/documents/redlistGuidelines [accessed December 10, 2019]
Nee, M. (1986) Lycianthes. In Gómez-Pompa, A., Moreno, N. P., Nevling Jr., L. I., Nee, M., Sosa, V., Ludlow-Wiechers, B, and Cabrera-Rodríguez, L. (Eds.) Flora de Veracruz, fascículo 49, Solanaceae I. Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Sobre Recursos Bióticos, Xalapa, Mexico. Pp. 85–110.
None known.
Lycianthes purpusii is a widespread species ranging from southern Mexico to Honduras, represented by 92 collections and occurring in eight protected areas. The EOO is 91,196.026 km2, and the AOO is 328 km2. Based on the IUCN (2019) criteria, the preliminary assessment category is Least Concern (LC).
Lycianthes purpusii is a wide-ranging species of high tropical forest and relatively low elevations. It is distinguished by very long calyx appendages (7–17 mm long in flower) and dendritically branched or long-stalked multangulate-stellate trichomes. The species is variable in leaf arrangement; the leaves are usually paired (geminate) in Honduras but unpaired in many places in Mexico. It is also variable in the length of the pedicels (sometimes becoming unusually long in Guatemala) and the color and density of the pubescence. This species is somewhat similar to L. furcatistellata Bitter of Costa Rica but differs from that species in habitat preference (L. furcatistellata occurs in upper elevations, often in cloud forest), length of the pedicels (L. purpusii often has flowering pedicels less than 20 mm long, while L. furcatistellata usually has pedicels greater than 20 mm long), and calyx appendage length (L. furcatistellata has appendages on the flowering calyxes of 4 mm or less). The two species do not have overlapping distributions. Several specimens with dense, soft, very branched calyx trichomes, very short pedicels, and flowers in very tight groupings are included in this species circumscription, and they might prove to be a separate species.