Nidularium rubens
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Nidularium rubens
Ian Hook 07/02
Ian Hook 02/05


NIDULARIUM RUBENS by Derek Butcher 2001

This all started with the usual batch of photographs I get from Geoff Lawn in Perth where I try to help him out with his inherited misnamings!!! Two were of that Nidularium innocentii looking plant with white petals and with long stolons that has been in Australia for many years. Geoff had a question mark against Nidularium purpureum which is a name we also saw on this plant in years past! BUT Nidularium purpureum has red petals!

The plant had apparently been in Western Australia for 20 years having been "imported" from the Eastern states. I obtained my plant from Ruby Ryde in Sydney some 10 years ago and ever since Elton Leme's book on Nidularium arrived I have been puzzling over this plant. Coming from Ruby Ryde with her penchant for species makes me think it is a species rather than a hybrid. A batch of these Nidularium books arrived on Aussie shores in late 2000 but if any keen growers want their own copy their best bet is to contact Karl Green in Florida direct. Because of the low exchange rate of the Aussie dollar this book will cost over A$200.00 but is well worth it. Those who do have this book are asked to check my findings!

First, I started off with the key which is easy to follow and surprisingly I finished up at Nidularium rubens. I say "surprisingly" because I thought I should have come out at Nidularium albiflorum which had been treated by Lyman Smith as a variety of Nidularium purpureum. This is what Elton Leme had to say about this species:-
"Nidularium rubens was described in 1891 by Karl Mez from a specimen collected by A. Glaziou at Serra do Picu and deposited in the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Museum herbarium, in Germany. The holotype is composed of an entire plant, without petals, so there is no data in the protologue on these structures. The species is characterised by its slender nature, stoloniferous mode of propagation, leaves few and strongly canaliculate toward the base with undulate margins, inflorescence clearly raised above the leaf rosette, primary bracts with an acuminate-caudate apex, often revolute toward the apex, and petal lobes white.
This species belongs to the "white complex" and is morphologically close to N. albiflorum; it even shares the same habitat, at least in the Sera de Paranapiacaba region. Nidularium rubens differs from N. albiflorum in its stoloniferous habit, longer leaves, much more developed floral scape that raises the inflorescence above the leaf rosette, primary bracts acuminate-caudate and often revolute, and wider sepals more highly connate at the base."

I worried about the length of the scape but the description says 10 – 20cm long and ours is at the bottom end of the scale. I worried about the predominantly green primary bracts but the description says greenish to red. I worried about the leaves but the description says blades sublinear-lanceolate, purplish-wine underneath. So, MY worries are over. How about yours?

So, instead of Nidularium 'Long stoloniferous from RR.' I'm putting Nidularium rubens on the label.


Nidularium rubens Mez, in Martius, Fl. bras. 3 (3).220. 1891.
Detail from Leme Nidularium – Brom. Atl. Forest. 138-40. 2000
PLANT propagating by stolons ca. 20 cm long, ca. 1 cm in diameter.
LEAVES 6 to 10, suberect to recurved toward apex, forming a very narrow, lax funnelform rosette;
SHEATHS narrowly elliptic, 10-14 x 4 cm, brown-lepidote, purplish wine abaxially, green adaxially;
BLADES sublinear-lanceolate, distinctly narrowed toward base, 30-70 x 2-4.5 cm, strongly canaliculate toward base with a thicker median channel, inconspicuously brown-lepidote and purplish-wine abaxially and toward base, glabrescent, green and opaque adaxially, apex acuminate, margins undulate and densely to subdensely spinulose, spines ca. 0.5 mm long, 4-5 mm apart.
SCAPE 10-20 cm long, ca. 0.6 cm in diameter, sulcate, glabrescent, equaling to distinctly exceeding the leaf sheaths;
SCAPE BRACTS the basal ones foliaceous or subfoliaceous, to equaling the inflorescence.
INFLORESCENCE bipinnate to tripinnate, capitate-rosulate, elliptic-tubulose, 5- 7 cm long, 4-6 cm in diameter at apex, distinctly exceeding the leaf sheaths and distinctly elevated above the rosette;
PRIMARY BRACTS ovate, apex acuminate-caudate, suberect-recurved toward the apex, apex often revolute, greenish to red, densely pale-lepidote, with long fimbriate basal trichomes, densely spinulose toward apex, spines 0.5-1 mm long, the basal ones 6-10 x 3-5 cm;
FASCICLES the basal ones 3-to-6 flowered, 25-30 x 15-20 mm;
FLORAL BRACTS elliptic to broadly ovate, apex acute to subrounded and apiculate, entire to inconspicuously spinulose at apex, 15-27 x 9-20 mm, membranaceous, pale sublanate adaxially, slightly exceeding the ovary to nearly equaling the sepals, hyaline, greenish to reddish toward apex.
FLOWERS 35-48 mm long, subsessile;
SEPALS apex acute and minutely apiculate, 13-18 (-22) x 7-8 mm, connate for 5-8 mm, sometimes the posterior ones higher connate than the anterior ones, the lobes broadly elliptic to subovate, greenish to red, glabrous;
PETALS 25-40 mm long, tube 17-30 mm long, pale green to whitish, lobes 8-10 x 4-5 mm, white, bearing 2 inconspicuous callosities at base;
ANTHERS 4-6 mm long, base obtuse to sagittate, apex minutely apiculate;
STIGMA subglobose, blade with crenulate margins;
OVARY ellipsoid-obovate, ca. 7 mm long, 4-6 mm in diameter.
FRUITS white, persistent calyx red toward apex.
TYPE: Rio de Janeiro, near boundary of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, Serra do Picu, Sept. 1881, A. Glaziou 13248. Holotype: B. Isotype: P, n.v. (photo HB).
ETYMOLOGY
Mez took the name of this species from the Latin rubens meaning "red" or "reddish", based on the purplish-red color of the adaxial leaf surface "foliis subtus omnino pulcherrime purpureo-sanguineis (...)".

DISCUSSION
Nidularium rubens was described in 1891 by Karl Mez from a specimen collected by A. Glaziou at Serra do Picu and deposited in the Berlin-Dahlem, Botanical Museum herrbarium in Germany. The holotype is composed of an entire plant, without petals, so there is no data in the protologue on these structures. The species is characterized by its slender stature, stoloniferous mode of propagation, leaves few and strongly canaliculate toward the base with undulate margins, inflorescence clearly raised above the leaf rosette, primary bracts with an acuminate-caudate apex, often revolute toward the apex, and petal lobes white.
This species belongs to the "white complex" and is morphologically close to N. albiflorum; it even shares the same habitat, at least in the Serra de Paranapiacaba region. Nidularium rubens differs from N. albiflorum in its stoloniferous habit, longer leaves, much more developed floral scape that raises the inflorescence above the leaf rosette, primary bracts acuminate caudate and often revolute, and wider sepals more highly connate at the base.

DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT
The type-specimen locality is the only one that lies outside the region where populations of N. rubens are concentrated. In fact, most records point to the taxon as typical of the montane sector of Sao Paulo, especially the Paranapiacaba region, with a lone specimen from Bertioga on the coast.
Nidularium rubens is a terrestrial species, growing in the litter layer of the Atlantic forest in Sao Paulo, especially in areas of high altitude cloud forest. From near sea level to over 1,000 m altitude, it grows in sparse populations and is sympatric with N. albiflorum and N. minutum, also from the "subcomplex innocentii" of the "white complex".
The species is protected in the Alto da Serra de Paranapiacaba Biological Reserve and the Caminhos do Mar Park (which belongs to the Sao Paulo electric company). It is represented by at least two clones in cultivation.

Detail from S&D
22. Nidularium rubens Mez, Mart. Fl. Bras. 3(3): 220. 1891.
Plant propagating by stout horizontal rhizomes. Leaves few in a lax funnelform rosette, to 1 m long; sheaths narrowly elliptic, inconspicuous, entire; blades ligulate, much narrowed toward base, slenderly acuminate, 25-35 mm wide, subdensely serrate with spines scarcely 0.5 mm long, green and glabrous above, bright purple and subglabrous beneath, narrowly pale-channeled. Scape evident, 10-20 cm high; scape-bracts foliaceous or subfoliaceous, densely imbricate. Inflorescence rather few-flowered, densely capituliform; primary bracts large and exceeding the flowers, broadly ovate, slenderly long-attenuate, densely serrulate, bright red, the lower subspreading, the upper nearly erect; branches very short with few-flowered fascicles. Floral bracts broadly ovate-elliptic, broadly acute or subrounded, mucronulate, slightly exceeding the ovaries, membranaceous, whitish, glabrous or subglabrous; flowers sessile, to 45 mm long. Sepals subovate, acute, to 13 mm long, connate for 5-7 mm, red, glabrous; petals to 37 mm long, high-connate, white, blades broadly rounded; stamens included, highly adnate to the petals; ovary ellipsoid, the epigynous tube short; placentae subapical; ovules obtuse.
Type. Glaziou 13248 (holotype B, F photo 11278), Serra do Picu, Rio de Janeiro near boundary with Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Distribution. Rainforest, ca. 800 m alt, Sao Paulo and vicinity, Brazil.
BRAZIL. Sao Paulo: Alto da Serra, 12 Jul 1923, Hoehne (SP); 21 Feb 1929, J. Lemos in L. B. Smith 1971 (GH); 20 Aug 1939, Foster 377 (GH); 1960, Doering 24 (US); Boracea, 27 Apr 1940, Blanco (GH, SP).

Updated 08/02/24