Urceolina amazonica

Urceolina amazonica
The first illustration of Urceolina amazonica, from Curtis's Botanical Magazine of 1857, misidentified as Eucharis × grandiflora by William Jackson Hooker
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Asparagales
Family: Amaryllidaceae
Subfamily: Amaryllidoideae
Genus: Urceolina
Species:
U. amazonica
Binomial name
Urceolina amazonica
(Linden ex Planch.) Christenh. & Byng
Synonyms[1]
  • Eucharis amazonica Linden ex Planch.

Urceolina amazonica, formerly known as Eucharis amazonica, is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae, native to Peru.[1] It is cultivated as an ornamental in many countries and naturalized in Venezuela, Mexico, the West Indies, Ascension Island, Sri Lanka, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and the Society Islands.[1] The English name Amazon lily is used for this species,[2] but is also used for some other species of the genus Urceolina.[3]

Description

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An evergreen bulbous perennial, Urceolina amazonica grows to 75 cm (30 in) tall by 50 cm (20 in) broad, with long narrow dark leaves and umbels of fragrant white flowers with six tepals. The stamens are fused at their bases forming a staminal cup in the center of the perianth. The free parts of filaments are subulate and flat. It is a sterile aneutriploid (2n=3x−1=68).[2][3]

Taxonomy

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The species was introduced to Europe in the summer of 1855 by Marius Porte who discovered it on the banks of the Amazon River near Moyobamba, Peru.[4] Jean Jules Linden named it Eucharis amazonica in his greenhouse catalogue of 1856.[5] The Veitch Nurseries followed Linden and labelled their plants of this species as E. amazonica, but William Jackson Hooker mistook this nomen nudum as an unpublished invention and misidentified the Veitch's plants as E. grandiflora (namely Urceolina × grandiflora) in 1857.[6] Later in the same year, Jules Émile Planchon formally described E. amazonica as a new species and ascribed the name to Linden, but he thought E. amazonica and E. grandiflora might be conspecific and agreed with Hooker's identification.[7]

Hooker's misidentification and Planchon's ambiguous opinion led the subsequent botanists to treat E. amazonica as a synonym of E. grandiflorum.[8] Although Alan Meerow and Bijan Dehgan in 1984 corrected this mistake,[8] the long-time confusion between the two species has persisted and U. amazonica is still frequently misidentified as U. × grandiflora. They differ in leaf length, free filament shape, staminal cup length:[3]

  • U. amazonica has longer leaf blades ((20–)30–40(–50) cm × (10–)12–18 cm), subulate free filaments (2.8–3.4 mm wide at the base), and staminal cups (11.2–13.8 mm long to the apex of teeth) longer than free filaments (6.5–8(–10) mm long).
  • U. × grandiflora has shorter leaf blades (20–33 cm × (10–)13–16 cm), linear or narrowly subulate free filaments (1–1.5 mm wide at the base), and staminal cups (5–7 mm long to the apex of teeth) shorter than free filaments (7–8.5(–10) mm long).

In 2018, it was transferred from Eucharis to Urceolina.[9] This placement was confirmed in a 2020 molecular phylogenetic study in which it is shown that Eucharis and Urceolina are part of a single clade with extensive ancestral reticulation.[10]

Cultivation

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As it is not hardy, it requires a sheltered spot with a protective winter mulch in colder areas. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[2][11]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Urceolina amazonica (Linden ex Planch.) Christenh. & Byng". Plants of the World Online. Kew Science. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  2. ^ a b c "Eucharis amazonica". RHS Gardening. Royal Horticultural Society. Retrieved 2023-06-24.
  3. ^ a b c Meerow, Alan W. (1989). "Systematics of the Amazon lilies, Eucharis and Caliphruria (Amaryllidaceae)". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 76 (1): 136–220. doi:10.2307/2399347. ISSN 0026-6493. JSTOR 2399347.
  4. ^ Otto, Carlos Frederico Eduardo (1856). "Das Établissement d'introduction pour les plantes nouvelles zu Brüssel". Hamburger Garten- und Blumenzeitung. 12: 182–183. Eucharis amazonica Lindl. wurde im sommer 1855 von Herrn Porte eingeführt, der sie an den Ufern des Amazonenstromes bei Moyabamba (Peru) entdeckte.
  5. ^ Linden, Jean Jules (1856). Etablissement d'introduction pour les plantes nouvelles (collections botaniques et zoologiques). No. 11. Supplément et extrait du catalogue des plantes exotiques, nouvelles et rares cultivées dans les serres de J. Linden. Bruxelles: E. Guyot et Stapleaux fils. p. 35.
  6. ^ Hooker, William Jackson (1857-03-01). "Eucharis grandiflora". Curtis's Botanical Magazine. 83 (3): Tab. 4971.
  7. ^ Planchon, Jules Émile; Van Houtte, Louis Benoît (1857). "Eucharis amazonica, Hort. Lind." Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe. 12: 69–70.
  8. ^ a b Meerow, Alan W.; Dehgan, Bijan (1984). "Re-establishment and lectotypification of Eucharis amazonica Linden ex Planchon (Amaryllidaceae)". Taxon. 33 (3): 416–422. doi:10.2307/1220981. ISSN 0040-0262. JSTOR 1220981.
  9. ^ "Urceolina amazonica (Linden) Christenh. & Byng". International Plant Names Index (IPNI). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries; Australian National Botanic Gardens. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  10. ^ Meerow, Alan W.; Gardner, Elliot M.; Nakamura, Kyoko (2020). "Phylogenomics of the Andean Tetraploid Clade of the American Amaryllidaceae (Subfamily Amaryllidoideae): Unlocking a Polyploid Generic Radiation Abetted by Continental Geodynamics". Frontiers in Plant Science. 11: 582422. doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.582422. ISSN 1664-462X. PMC 7674842. PMID 33250911.
  11. ^ "AGM Plants - Ornamental" (PDF). Royal Horticultural Society. July 2017. p. 37. Retrieved 18 February 2018.