Brazilian shade-loving groundcover for id please

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by bonitin, Aug 22, 2015.

  1. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    I've been searching the web for very long but still have no clue what it could be..
    The plants are growing usually in groups under the dense forest canopy, the underside of the leaves is a dark purple, upper side dark green beautifully silver-white veined. It looks like it has climbing ambitions as I often found them winding themselves on a neighbour plant, never saw it climbing on a tree or tall plant though.

    The area where I found them was in the Rio de Janeiro state in a protected rainforest area of Paraty.
    I would greatly appreciate any help! :)
    Myriam
     

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  2. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Did you really mean to post this in Araceae? I can see that it's vine-like, a bit similar to philodendron, but the leaves are opposite.

    Again, as in your other Brazilian posting, the photos are excellent. This looks so distinctive, it's surprising that it's so hard to identify.
     
  3. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    Thank you wcutler!
    Sorry, i wasn't aware I posted this in the Araceae! I have no clue to what family it could belong, unfortunately again we have no flowers nor fruits to give us a starting point.
    But like you say the plant is so distinctive in its looks, I also don't understand why it is so difficult. I don't think the plant is that rare, i came across it several times in that area.,
    Myriam
     
  4. chimera

    chimera Well-Known Member 10 Years

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  5. chimera

    chimera Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Seems like it wasn't such a good suggestion boniton, sorry about that. Hoping you find the plant name.
     
  6. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I don't really think this is it - Bignonia argyrea. It barely even seems to exist, only pictured in two drawings from around 1870, of which this is the one that shows purple on the leaf underside:
    http://www.hortalia.org/items/show/892.
    This print is for Bignonia argyrea violescens (elsewhere, it's violascens), and it's the one the says it's from Central Amazon:
    http://www.finerareprints.com/print_detail.html?stock_no=12640

    I don't think the venation is quite right, but the description from Gardening in India (!) says
    The referenced Bignonia gracilis also does not seem to exist. In one of your photos, there are plain green leaves with the same shape and venation as the ones with the white veins. I wonder if they are the same plant, and if this description really is apt. [Edited]You didn't happen to notice any 4 foot long capsules around, did you? :)

    I came up with the name from an old book - Exotic Plant Manual, Alfred Byrd Graf, Roehrs Company, 1974, which has a photo on page 266 that looks somewhat more like it, with the right shaped acuminate leaves and a poor enough photo that I can't quite tell about the veining pattern.
     
  7. Axel

    Axel Active Member

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    Bignonia argyreoviolascens is supposed to have leaves with entire edge. It's very interesting to search in old descriptions and botanical drawings though, for rare, underdocumented plants like this there might not be better solutions.
     
  8. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Also note that in most leaves in the plant from Brazil, 5 veins radiate from where the leaf blade attaches to the petiole, and in the illustrations for the Bignonia, it is only 3.

    I like Pilea or another member of the Urticaceae.
     
  9. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    This is not an answer, just a resource that came up, though not for this particular plant. Alex Popovkin has 16,000 or so photos on flickr from the Atlantic forest area of northeastern Bahia, Brazil, organized into albums for each species, or in some cases for a family. He includes small animals as well. They're notated as to location and the photos are excellent.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/plants_of_russian_in_brazil/albums.
    His photos are also in Collections, at least one of which is organized by family.

    Axel, thanks for mentioned the leaf edges. I forgot about that already, after trying to figure out for the Kew key whether these leaf edges are serrated or dentate.

    Daniel, yes, Urticaceae is one of the families that comes up, but the Kew photos in this family don't include this plant. I'm not even sure it's on the internet.
    Bonitin, I did a google search by photo and it brought up your query on another forum but nothing else that was close.
     
  10. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    Never mind Chimera, you were only trying to be helpful! :)

    Thank you wcutler for all your research work, much appreciated!
    I've looked in the "Flora do Brasil" and for that area it gives 6 species of Bignonia with herbarium specimen.
    All of them have entire leaf margins, so unfortunately it cannot be my plant..
    http://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/ja...trarAte=SUBESP_VAR&opcoesBusca=TODOS_OS_NOMES
    (No I didn’t find any 4 foot long capsules around, wow, 4 foot long would be very big for such a relative small plant!)

    As you might have read on my ID request on the other site, I did bring a small rooted piece back home, It grew well for a while but then gradually lost all its leaves, it could be lack of humidity in the air, the stem is still firm though and alive, so maybe it will get new leaves, but I won’t put my hopes on that..
    Thank you for the link of Alex Popovkin, what an excellent collection and great photos, though the location is more northerly I still might find some of mine in there!

    My thanks too to Axel and Daniel for popping in!
    Myriam
     
  11. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I see what you mean from this Urtica dioica drawing, which looks similar in several respects, though solid green. [Edited]It does seem to be naturalized in Brazil, according to the Flora do Brasil site that Myriam referenced.
    There is a Peruvian Biology Review that lists several Urtica, some of which are described as lianescent shrubs, but they all seem to have stinging hairs. And no white veins. There are some photos and drawings in the article. Google, of course, returns the same photos for all of them, totally ignoring the species.

    I haven't come up with a Pilea that's close. The ones from South America seem to have unequal size leaves in the pairs.

    I was interested in this because I thought it looked so familiar, like something I might have seen in Hawaii, but I'm sure by now that it's something I've never heard of.
     
  12. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    I've been searching Pilea but they all have 3 main veins and like Daniel pointed out mine has 5; so not Pilea either..

    Forgot to answer wcutler about the entire green leaves in one of the pics, no they belong to another plant which also looks vine-like, but the venation doesn't match, the main veins don't radiate from the base of the leaf like in mine..
     
  13. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    You're probably right, but I did think the two circled in red looked pretty similar. Well, it hasn't helped to ignore the vein colouring in searches.
     

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  14. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    I made a crop of the leaves of the other plant you have encircled to have a better view, another difference is that the leaf base is not heart-shaped like in the veined plant..
     

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  15. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    @bonitin, this is still not an answer, though I think about this a lot.

    Today I discovered the word porphyrophyllum. On one page, there is a definition:
    porphyrophylla, leaves marked like porphyry. As best as I can guess, the reference is to an ornamental stone pattern, particularly feldspar (is that purple?), I ask because on another page, the definition is: porphyrophylla, prophyrophyllum, porphyrophyllus purple + leaf.

    The point is, when I queried porphyrophyllum images, I got some plants with markings similar to yours, for instance Piper porphyrophyllum. This is probably what I was thinking of that looked similar. It doesn't have serrated margins or as elegant a leaf shape, but it is a climber with opposite leaves (in some photos anyway) with purple backs, similar veining. Here are two photos:
    Piper porphyrophyllum (Lindl.) N. E. Br.
    Piper porphyrophyllum
    Here is one with leaves even the same shape (but entire margins):
    Перец - Piper описание и уход на FloralWorld.ru. Google helpfully offered to translate this, and I see that Piper leaves are usually alternate but can be (rarely) opposite. The one that looks most like yours on that page is Piper crocatum, which seems to have alternate leaves. Here's a photo of that:
    Celebes Pepper{piper crocatum}
    All those leaves seem to be in the same plane, so that's another difference, I think even more important than the leaf margins.
     
  16. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    Thank you Wendy for your research work, it is appreciated! :)

    Yes, I do see the remarkable resemblance with Piper crocatum, I've seen it in the local botanical garden tropical greenhouses and it also called my attention.
    I've been searching all the piper species recorded in the 'Flora do Brasil' for that area and didn't find anything like it..and non of the whole Piperaceae family has members with serrated leaf margins so
    I think we have to look into another family, but that is near to impossible as we have no flowers..

    Myriam
     
  17. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I finally decided to ask Alex Popovkin on flickr (see Posting #9), who sent me this reply:
    "according to my colleagues [in Rio de Janiero, far from Alex's area of research], it's a juvenile form of the liana Mikania hemisphaerica Sch.Bip., Asteraceae".

    I have found a page that has very many Mikania listed.
    Flora brasiliensis, CRIA

    This one is under the section
    Mikania sect. Volubiles ser. Cordiformes
    (where the alphabetical list starts for the fourth time; sorry, I don't seem to be able to link directly to it or to the pages with the description and drawing)
    There is a link to a drawing and to a text description in what I think is Latin, though there were a couple of words that made me think it might be in Portuguese but composed almost entirely of botanical words that are Latin.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2016
  18. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    Wow, I thank you so much Wendy for your tenacity and Alex for asking his colleagues in Rio! I'm sure
    Mikania hemisphaerica is the right one! I've found the botanical drawing, it does look like a match! I hope I'm allowed to post a screenshot of the drawing..very strange that there is not a single photo of the plant on the internet..
    I'm happy this mystery is finally resolved! :))))
    Myriam
     

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  19. Silver surfer

    Silver surfer Generous Contributor 10 Years

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    Very interesting thread.
    Found 2 actual pics on www. see bottom of link.
    I am not convinced this is the correct answer.

    Plants in link pic look pretty mature...no sign of the beautiful vein markings.

    Mikania hemisphaerica - FloraSBS

    https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-pA103Plq5t8/VCYCB9zQfeI/AAAAAAAAh_k/7iH46q2b9cg/s400/Mikania+hemisphaerica+MBM392108%281%29.JPG

    http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=33399

    Mikania sp seems to be an invasive climbing pest sp...like Convolvulus/Kudzu
    Can find no mention of beautifully marked white veins.

    Mikania - Google Search
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2016
  20. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    Oh :( How confusing, it's true the photos on Flora SBS don't look at all like the mystery plant, not only missing the silver veins, but also the leaf shape doesn't match, and on top it doesn't match the botanical drawing either!
    Could it be that the plant in Flora SBS is misidentified, or is that unthinkable?

    When googling for images, I found the botanical drawing, I give the link here it will show in a larger format.
    http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=33399
     
  21. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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  22. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    In vines, leaf shapes and appearance can be very different in their juvenile or adult form, but in the botanical drawing it seems to be the adult form as it is blooming?
     
  23. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I found an instance of the drawing at Botanicus.org: Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum, saying it has Creative Commons, attribution non-commercial licence, asks for attribution to "Peter H. Raven Library/Missouri Botanical Garden". So I think it's fine to keep your screenprint here.

    That picture at Silver Surfer's second link is from her first link, with a photo just above it showing both leaf shapes in the same photo, maybe even the same stem.
    There is a huge variation in leaf shapes, including the shape at the stem attachment, among the very many Mikania species, and it would appear, in the same species.
     
  24. bonitin

    bonitin Active Member

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    Yes, I know Wendy, I've seen that too, but cannot see a true resemblance to my plant, even with some of the leaves of similar shape in that photo, sigh..
    A pity the botanical drawing doesn't give other leaf shapes of the same plant,
    and then does a juvenile form as would be presented in that botanical drawing (as i recognize my plant in it which is a juvenile) bloom??? It confuses me..
     
  25. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I would assume that flowers would not appear next to juvenile leaves. That would be similar to Hedera species, where the leaves (leaf shape and leaf markings and leaf margins) change with the adult leaves that develop when the vine starts to climb upwards on something vertical, and not until after that point that they start to flower, only on the upper growth. I think Hedera is a pretty good example in that there are very many leaf shapes even among the juvenile leaves right next to each other on the same branch - some narrow, some wide, some no lobes, some three or five lobes. I don't know whether the term "heterochrony" applies to different leaf markings as well as different leaf shape.

    There are two possibilities. Either Alex's colleagues mis-remembered the species name (I'm inclined to think they got it at least on the genus), or there is a lot growing in Brazil that we haven't seen on the internet, and they've seen juvenile leaves on Mikania hemisphaerica and we have not found anything that shows them to us.
     

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