Diastatea tenera, (A. Gray) McVaugh, Bull. Torrey Bot.

Johnson, Elizabeth P. & Ayers, Tina J., 2022, Molecular Phylogeny and Taxonomic Revision of the Genus Diastatea (Campanulaceae: Lobelioideae), Systematic Botany (Basel, Switzerland) 47 (1), pp. 61-84 : 73-74

3. DIASTATEA TENERA (A.Gray) McVaugh, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 67: 143. 1940.

Palmerella tenera A. Gray, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 22: 433. 1887.

Lobelia palmeri Greene, Pittonia 1(6): 297. 1889; non Lobelia tenera Kunth , Nov. Gen. Sp. [H.B.K.] 3: 314. 1819.

TYPE: MÉXICO. Jalisco: Rıo Blanco, 17 September 1886, E. Palmer 552 (holotype: GH! ; isotypes: P-image! , YU-image! ).

Laurentia pinetorum Brandegee, Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. 4: 92. 1910. TYPE: MÉXICO. Popocatepetl , dry sandy soil in pine forests, October 1908, C. A. Purpus 3665 (holotype: UC-image!; isotypes: F-image!, GH!, MO!, NY-image!, USimage!).

Stems simple or with few to many ascending branches, 0.2–1.2 mm wide at base, winged, glabrous, or the wings minutely ciliolate. Leaves sessile, decurrent into narrow wings on stem; blades green or purple throughout or green adaxially and purple abaxially, base rounded to cuneate, apex rounded to narrowly acute; lowermost leaves deltoid to ovate; middle to upper leaves narrowly elliptic to linear; margins regularly serrate to serrulate or teeth reduced to marginal callosities; glabrous. Inflorescence strongly secund with few to 20 flowers per stem; bracts leaf-like, becoming smaller and linear distally, ascending or appressed. Flowers with glabrous or slightly scabrous pedicels, spreading to ascending, in fruit often bent distally; hypanthium obconic in flower, 0.3–1.2 mm in diameter, 0.3–2.0 mm in length from calyx sinus to attachment point with pedicel, expanded in fruit to envelop up to one-third of the mature capsule, glabrous; calyx lobes equal to subequal, about one-third to two-thirds the length of the fruit, green or purple; corolla purple, purplish-blue, or white, tube cylindrical and gibbous at base on ventral side; anthers dark purple with downy white covering and short stiff hairs at apex of dorsal anthers, plus two large, narrow trichomes and several slightly smaller secondary trichomes at apex of ventral anther pair. Fruits light-brown to purplish; seeds ellipsoid, 0.4–0.5 mm long, orange-brown.