Cuscuta ortegana

Nomenclature

Accepted name/Authority/Place of publication: 

Cuscuta ortegana Yunck., Mem.Torrey Bot. Club 18: 232, 1932.

Description

Habit: 
Annual; stems 0.4-0.6 mm in diameter, yellow-orange.
Inflorescences: 
dense, glomerulate, often confluent; pedicels 0.4–1.5 mm; bracts 1–2 at the base of clusters, 0–1 at the base of pedicels, 2.5–3 mm long, broadly triangular (broader than long), margins entire, apex long-cuspidate.
Flowers: 
5-merous, 4.2–6 mm, membranous, white when fresh, creamy-white when dried; papillae present or absent on the calyx and corolla; laticifers visible in the corolla lobes, anthers and infrastaminal scales; calyx 3.2–4 mm, straw-yellow, reticulate, not shiny, campanulate, equaling the corolla tube, divided ca. 1/3, tube 0.8–1.2 mm, lobes 2.2–3 mm, basally overlapping, broadly ovate-triangular, not carinate, margins entire, apex long-cuspidate; corolla 4–5 mm, tube 3–3.3 mm, cylindric, lobes 1.5–2 mm, erect to reflexed, 1/2–2/3 the tube, ovate, overlapping at base, margins entire, apex ± acute, cucullate, with a subterminal dorsal cusp, 0.25–0.4 mm long; stamens not or barely exserted, shorter than corolla lobes, anthers 0.4–0.55 × 0.3–0.4 mm, elliptic, filaments 0.2–0.3 mm; infrastaminal scales 2–2.4 mm long, 1/2–2/3 as long as the tube, bridged at 0.4–0.7 mm, oblong to obovate, dense fringed, fimbriae 0.2–0.4 mm; styles 2.5–3.5 mm, longer than the ovary, evenly filiform.
Fruits: 
Capsules circumscissile, 2–3.3 × 1.8–2.2 mm, depressed globose, thickened at the apex with large interstylar aperture, translucent or not, loosely surrounded and capped by the withered corolla.
Seeds: 
1–2 per capsule, 1–1.25 × 0.9–1.1 mm, angled, subround to round, seed coat cells alveolate/papillate.
Author: 
Mihai Costea
References: 

Costea, M. 2007-onwards. Digital Atlas of Cuscuta (Convolvulaceae). Wilfrid Laurier University Herbarium, Ontario, Canada. Flower morphology; pollen; living plants.

Costea, M., I.R.Garcia, S. Stefanović. 2011. ‘Horned’dodders: phylogenetic relationships and two new species within Cuscutachapalana complex (Convolvulaceae). Botany, in press.

Yuncker, J. G. 1932. The genus Cuscuta. Mem. Torrey Bot. Club 18:113–331.

Biogeography, Ecology and Natural History

Distribution: 

Mexico: Durango, Jalisco, Michoacán.

Ecology: 

Hosts were not recorded for any of the collections and are
impossible to identify based on the fragments present in herbaria; elevation
1000–2000 m.

Author: 
Mihai Costea

Authorship for webpage

Editor: 
Mihai Costea
Classification: 

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