This morning, John successfully sent me images of several species of Ruellia that admittedly I don’t know enough about.

Cecilia (Ezcurra) says a thing or two about this one in her 1993 (MoBot) publication, a halation that was rather bible-like to me in grad school (if she had a dollar for every time I referenced it….). The epithet has been around for a long time. It is apparently somewhat widely distributed, which seems to always equate to ‘problem child.’

Including two photos of this one. John certainly knows more about it than I. Many thanks to him for graciously sharing his images.

Update (Sep 2016): We encountered two populations of this species while traveling through the eastern part of Bolivia from where it is known (as well as parts of Brazil and Paraguay). Each were observed at roadside in secondary forest of mixed wet forest/savanna. The individuals we collected were rather leggy herbs up to 1.5 meters.

Wild Collected, Bolivia, Erin Tripp #6008 & 6011 w/ Manuel Luján and Dina Clark; Photo by Manuel Luján; Blog post by Dina Clark

I just love this species SO much. (I also love those tiny portable rulers that Carrie takes with her everywhere). Ruellia bourgaei is most certainly is among my top 5 favorites in the genus. WHOMPING bat-pollinated flowers…. probably the biggest in the genus. This species also produces the biggest fruits yet known in Ruellia. They are humongous – over 5 cm in length.

In the photo to the right, check out the filament curtain. This structure, which is unique to Ruellieae (see Tripp et al. 2013, International Journal of Plant Sciences), is a partition formed by the fusion of filament pairs and their adnation to the corolla wall. Who knows its function (but see Manktelow 2000 for some excellent hypotheses)… maybe in preventing nectar evaporation, maybe for overall floral stabilization, maybe in some other pollination-related function, or maybe nothing at all.

Ruellia bourgaei is endemic to Mexico, with most extant populations occupying the Sierra Madre del Sur. Part of the “Chiropterophila” or “bat loving” clade. Flowers at night, naturally. And, naturally, another plant named after a dead white guy – sigh.

Wild collected, Mexico, Tripp & Kiel #428 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

Look at this one! Highly distinctive by it’s large, paired, leaf-life bracts, which otherwise is a feature best known in the genus Petalidium. This beautiful plant was seen inhabiting some killer hot landscapes of southeastern Ethiopia, several stones throw from the Somalia border. A few more degrees and I might have melted.

Ruellia boranica was described by our good friend and colleague Ensermu Kelbessa – a serious scholar of the Ethiopian flora, student of Acanthaceae, and a pretty fun guy to travel with.

Wild collected, Ethiopia, Tripp & Ensermu #903 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

A common weed of Latin America (also naturalized elsewhere in the world) that you’ve almost certainly stepped on. Formerly of the genus Blechum L., which we offed….(see Tripp et al. 2009 ,Taxon). Note the characteristic four sided inflorescences (recapitulating the decussate pattern of vegetative development). The fruits dehisce in an interesting manner…. fracturing placentae, as we have termed it. Pick one up and check it out next time you’re dodging cow patties and walking on weeds.

Wild collected, Mexico, Tripp & Dexter #163 (DUKE); Photo by Erin Tripp

A highly distinctive Central American specialty. Loves wet forests, and high-quality ones at that. Most flowers of this species are pale purple or pink and white, but there are greenish-yellow morphs near the Atlantic coast in Costa Rica.

Has fleshy leaves. Sort of makes me want to eat it.

Wild collected, Costa Rica, Tripp & McDade #134 (DUKE); Photo by Erin Tripp

OK, scratch all those other pages in which I claim favoritism for some other species of Ruellia – THIS by far has to be the coolest!  The corollas of Ruellia bignoniiflora/megachlamys, a tropical African endemic, reach to 13 cm long. Yes, oh yes. That is approximately the length of your palm + fingers. I don’t even know how that works, biomechanically. Wouldn’t the corolla just tip over, with the weight of nectar, etc.?

This plant flowers at night and is almost certainly (or used to be) pollinated by nocturnal lepidopterans. Like most Acanths, the flowers don’t produce any odor… at least not one discernable by the human nose. Pollinated ovaries ripen into a cute, fat little fruit, which takes a surprisingly long time to mature. This species likes to vine, placing it among the few in the genus that make their way by scrambling from place to place…

Cultivated (RSABG Greenhouses), originally from Ethiopia, Tripp & Ly #958 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

This beautiful shrub with floral tubes up to 9 mm in length is named for the Departmento de Beni, an ecologically rich area of northeastern Bolivia, a part of the larger Bolivian amazon. Known only from the type locality, a well-traveled mountain rising above the town of Rurrenabaque, we collected this species from this site for only the second time since it was described in 2003. Most likely this species is a very narrow endemic and should be considered to be very rare.

The evening in which we found this species will be forever remembered. The sun was low in the sky casting a pink haze over the landscape while at the same time trumpets, trombones, and drums sounded from below as the Bolivian navy marching band practiced. To make the evening ever more special, a Clusia collected by Manuel Lujan from the same location, may be a new species!

Wild collected, Bolivia, Tripp #5994 w/ Luján, and Clark (COLO); Photos and blog post by Dina Clark

As the name implies – this plant is SCA-BROUS. Yep. In this case, the leaves… particularly older leaves. Ruellia aspera is an absolutely remarkable species from southern Namibia, where it is uncommon but, if found, locally abundant.

A real beauty, and one beheld surely by many eyes other than my own.

Wild collected, Namibia, Tripp & Dexter et al. #2079 (RSA-POM); Photo by Erin Tripp

Here is a petite endemic species described by our colleagues Dieter and John in 2003. I have never seen anything of this plant other than the photos that John so courteously shared, but it looks distinctive to me.

I do not yet know what clade this species belongs to, but based on the protologue, I predict membership in Physiruellia.

Wild collected, Bolivia, Darwin Initiative Project #162/11/010; Photo by John Wood

I am so incredibly envious of any and all of you who have had the fortune of seeing this one alive / in the field. I think I’ve been having dreams about it for at least a decade now – ever since Lucinda told me there was a black-flowered Acanth. Yep – black. Even the herbarium labels say such. Some overly committed anthocyanin accumulation in the flowers of this Panamanian endemic. Desperately seeking gene upregulation study.

I have no idea where this species ‘goes’ phylogenetically. Based on inflorescence structure, I’d not be surprised if it wound up in the (*gasp*) Ruellia blechum clade of all places…

Wild collected, Panama, Gentry #5691 (MO); Photo from STRI website