''Spigelia genuflexa'' is a species of

annual Annual may refer to: * Annual publication, periodical publications appearing regularly once per year **Yearbook **Literary annual * Annual plant *Annual report *Annual giving *Annual, Morocco, a settlement in northeastern Morocco *Annuals (band), ...

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicina ...

of the family

Loganiaceae The Loganiaceae are a family of flowering plants classified in order Gentianales. The family includes up to 13 genera, distributed around the world's tropics. There are not any great morphological characteristics to distinguish these taxa from ...

from

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest ...

state,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, which was described in 2011. It is unusual in that the stems bend down after flowering to deposit the seeds in the soil (

geocarpy Geocarpy is "an extremely rare means of plant reproduction", in which plants produce diaspores within the soil. This may occur with subterranean flowers (protogeocarpy), or from aerial flowers, parts of which penetrate the soil after flowering ...

Description

''Spigelia genuflexa'' shows two growth forms. In one,

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed ...

s are produced after the first three pairs of leaves, when the plant is around tall; in the other, four or five pairs of leaves precede the inflorescence, by which time the plant is tall. The leaves are oppositely arranged, long and wide, and elliptic to ovate in shape. The inflorescences are composed of up to 7 flowers, and the corollas of the flowers are long. The stems are somewhat red-coloured, and have 4 to 6 prominent ribs running down from the leaf bases.

Ecology

''Spigelia genuflexa'' grows in residual stands of

Atlantic forest The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and t ...

in the Rio do Negro valley in

state (), at an altitude of , and about from the Atlantic coast. It flowers during the

rainy season The rainy season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Rainy Season may also refer to: * ''Rainy Season'' (short story), a 1989 short horror story by Stephen King * "Rainy Season", a 2018 song by Monni * '' ...

, and almost disappears during the

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The ...

. It is able to

self-pollinate Self-pollination is a form of pollination in which pollen from the same plant arrives at the stigma of a flower (in flowering plants) or at the ovule (in gymnosperms). There are two types of self-pollination: in autogamy, pollen is transferred t ...

, with

anthesis Anthesis is the period during which a flower is fully open and functional. It may also refer to the onset of that period. The onset of anthesis is spectacular in some species. In ''Banksia'' species, for example, anthesis involves the extension ...

lasting less than a day. After pollination, the plant stem bends, and in the lower growth form, deposits the

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosper ...

s in the soil; the taller growth form remains some distance above the soil surface.

Taxonomy

''Spigelia genuflexa'' was discovered on land owned by Alex Popovkin in 2009, by Popovkin's "house help" José Carlos Mendes Santos. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

' is a reference to the plant's tendency to bend down after flowering, from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

' (''cf.''

genuflexion Genuflection or genuflexion is the act of bending a knee to the ground, as distinguished from kneeling which more strictly involves both knees. From early times, it has been a gesture of deep respect for a superior. Today, the gesture is common ...

). The authors proposed that the species should be listed as ''

Data Deficient A data deficient (DD) species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as offering insufficient information for a proper assessment of conservation status to be made. This does not necessarily ...

'' according to the criteria of the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. Popovkin is a Russian emigre and amateur botanist who has fulfilled a long-held dream to study plants in the tropics. It is one of sixty species which make up the poorly-studied Neotropical genus '' Spigelia'', but does not appear particularly close to any other species.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1939450 Loganiaceae Flora of Brazil Plants described in 2011