Tupa robusta A. DC.

• Title

  Tupa robusta A. DC.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Tupa robusta A.DC.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Tupa robusta Chicoria cimarrona Robust Tupa Family Lobeliaceae Lobelia Family Lobelia robusta Graham, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 11: 378.1831. Tupa robusta Alphonse De Candolle, Prodromus 7: 394. 1839. Lobelia assurgens portoricensis Urban, Symbolae Antillanae 1: 454. 1899. This large, unbranched, or but little branched, herbaceous plant, peculiar in aspect, inhabits woodlands, cliffs and forests, in wet or moist parts of Porto Rico, from lower to high elevations, and grows also in Santo Domingo, Haiti and Cuba. Its leaves are unusual, in being stalkless and decurrent on the stem, with long, narrow, distant teeth on the margins below the middle, grading into very small, short teeth above. Tupa (Chilean name) established as a genus by the English botanist George Don in 1834, comprises some 30 species of perennial herbs, and shrubs, natives of tropical America and warm-temperate South America, with alternate leaves and large, irregular flowers in long clusters at the ends of the stem and branches. The tube of the calyx is adnate to the ovary, its limb 5-toothed; the corolla is 1-lipped, the lip 5-cleft, the tube split to the base on one side; the 5 stamens are united by their filaments, the anthers, or only 2 of them bearing a tuft of hairs; the ovary is 2-celled, contains many ovules, and the stigma is 2-lobed. The fruit is a many-seeded, 2-valved capsule. Tupa robusta (robust) has a stout, simple, or little branched stem, about 2 meters high, or lower, smooth, or somewhat hairy toward the top. The thin, stalkless leaves are oblong, or oblong-lance-shaped, long-pointed, from 10 to 30 centimeters long, the teeth of the lower part distant from each other, narrow, from 2 to 8 millimeters long, those on the upper part close together and much shorter. The numerous flowers are in densely hairy, terminal clusters from 10 to 20 centimeters long, on slender stalks from 2 to 3 centimeters long, subtended by narrow, long bracts; the lance-shaped calyx-lobes are from 4 to 10 millimeters long; the dull-purple, or reddish corolla is about 15 millimeters long. The nearly globular capsule is about 10 millimeters in diameter. Another species, Tupa portoricensis is endemic in mountain forests in Porto Rico; its leaves are long-stalked, evenly small-toothed, and not decurrent on the stem, the greenish-red corolla about 25 millimeters long.