Agapetes serpens (Wight) Sleumer

Habit

Epiphytic shrub

Family Description

Trees, shrubs, or subshrubs, often evergreen, sometimes epiphytic. Leaves alternate, sometimes becoming aggregate into pseudo-whorls, simple, pinnately veined, exstipulate. Flowers in racemes, corymbs, panicles, clusters or solitary, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, bisexual. Calyx of 5(-8)sepals, free and borne on ovary, or united into tube at base. Corolla of 5(-10)petals united at base or almost to apex, tubular, barrel-shaped, urn-shaped, campanulate, funnel-shaped or salver-shaped. Ovary inferior or superior, 4-5(-20)-celled; style cylindric; stigmasimple; ovules numerous, axile. Fruit a berry or 5(-20)-valved capsule, sometimes enclosed by enlarged fleshy calyx.. . Members of the Ericaceae are of great horticultural importance in North temperate countries, particularly in Europe and north America where many genera are prized as ornamentals, including Rhododendron (by far the most important), Enkianthus, Pieris, Gaultheria, Vaccinium and Agapetes. Bhutan is particularly rich in Ericaceae, and there exists some economic potential for commercial production ot the rare species.. . The family is treated here in a broad sense, including those genera sometimes placed separately in Vacciniaceae.

Genus Description

Evergreen shrubs, sometimes epiphytic; stems often thickened at base. Leaves alternate, sometimes pseudo-whorled, entire or toothed, often woth glands at the apex of the petiole. Flowers in axillry corymbs or solitary; pedicels often thickened, cupped and articulate under ovary. Sepals 5, borne around top of ovary. Petals 5, lobes often recurved. Stamens 10, free; filaments short; anthers elongated into 2 long tubes, opening at apex and often spurrerd dorsally. Ovary inferior, terete, 5-angled or winged, 5-celled; style simple. Fruit a 5-lobed, globose bery; seeds many, ellipsoid.

Species description

Pendulous epiphytic shrub, 0.5-1.5m; shoots covered with bristly hairs. leaves leathery, borne in one plane, ovate-lanceolate, 1-1.5x0.5-0.7cm, apex subacutw, base ruonded, marginns recurved, remotely serrulate or subentire, subsessile. Flowers solitary, axillary; pedicels 0.7-1.5cm, glandular-hairy. Sepals lanceolate, 0.8-1cm, glandular-hairy. Corolla tubular, 2-3x0.5-1cm, red with darker markings, lobes 3-5mm. 5-winged ; sepals persistent.