Passiflora tessmannii Harms (1926: 978)

Kuethe, J. R., Cornejo, Xavier, Garzón-Suárez, Henry X., Jiménez, Marco M., Wettges, Martin, Magdalena, Carlos, Mejía-Pazos, Nicanor, Flores, Juan Carlos Espín & Decoux, Jose, 2025, Passionflower trees of Ecuador: revising the presence of Passiflora subg. Astrophea (Passifloraceae) and including resolution to the P. putumayensis and P. macrophylla taxonomic complexes, Phytotaxa 697 (2), pp. 147-165 : 162

7. Passiflora tessmannii Harms (1926: 978) ( Figure 7d )

Type:— PERU. Loreto: Río Marañon, mouth of Río Santiago , 04°24’55”S 77°38’44”W, October 1924 (fl.), G. Tessmann 4385 (holotype: B (destroyed); lectotype US 00115118!).

Notes:— Passiflora tessmannii is among a small group of species with a distinct umbrella-like structure (trochlea) developed along the base of the androgynophore. It produces masses of flowers on very short peduncles in arrangements of two per foliar node. The corona is short (<1 cm), apically dolabriform, with an erect, filamentose to papillose inner series. It is easily distinguished from the only other trochlea-bearing species ( P. trochlearis Jørg. 1998: 379 ) by its broadly ovate (vs. ovate-lanceolate) leaves and Amazonian distribution. Only two records of P. tessmannii are known from east Ecuador, where this rare species is found in the transitional sub-Amazonian forests in the northern fringes of Cordillera del Condór of Morona-Santiago and Pastaza provinces. It is found growing along clearings and riverbeds of dense tropical wet forest at elevations between 800 and 1500 m above sea level.

Figures

FIGURE 7. Overview of the Ecuadorean Astrophea. All taken within Ecuador.A) P. trochlearis (by Juan C. Espín F.); B) P. skiantha (by Dawson White); C) P. tina (by Xavier Cornejo); D) P. tessmannii (by Henry Garzón-Suarez); E) P. pyrrhantha (by Xavier Cornejo); F) P. spinosa (by Sebastián Vizcarra).