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Batopedina Verdc. [family RUBIACEAE]

Date Updated: 26 July 2007

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora Zambesiaca
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
FZ, Vol 5, Part 1, (1989) Author: B. Verdcourt
Names
Batopedina Verdc. [family RUBIACEAE], in Bull. Jard. Bot. Brux.23: 29 (1953).—Robbrecht in Bull. Jard. Bot. Nat. Belg.51: 174 (1981).
Information
Subshrubs with many branches from a thick woody rootstock, often tufted. Leaves opposite but sometimes appearing verticillate, linear to ovate; stipules with 3–5 short lobes from a short base. Flowers heterostylous, solitary or paired, axillary or at apices of branchlets; calyx tube ovoid; lobes unequal, one foliaceous and rest minute or of varying sizes. Corolla tube filiform, enlarged at apex; throat hairy inside; lobes 5, ovate. Stamens 5, included or exserted. Ovary 2-locular with many ovules. Style included or exserted; stigma lobes filiform. Capsule ovoid, splitting into 2 cocci with numerous seeds. Testa finely striate.
Range
A genus of 3 species from Upper Volta, Ghana, Zambia and Zaire which I am now very doubtful should be separated from Otomeria.
Notes
Robbrecht figures the testa cells of all 3 showing wavy walls, lumina not punctate and fine striae more or less at right angles to the radial walls. This, however, is not helpful since testa cell sculpture and shape vary considerably in Otomeria, the walls being straight or wavy, the lumina smooth or punctate and in 2 species there are similar striae. Batopedina linearifolia var. glabra Petit is I think a distinct species and has the wavy walls, striations and unpunctured lumina of Batopedina but distinctly spicate inflorescences of Otomeria.
Batopedina Verdc. [family RUBIACEAE]
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