Klarobelia icoja S. Lara & Chatrou, 2025

Klarobelia icoja S. Lara & Chatrou sp. nov.

Fig. 2 View Figure 2

Type.

Peru • [Dept. Ucayali: Province Padre Abad], vicinity of Aguaytía , [09°03'S, 075°30'W], 22 Jun 1961, M. E. Mathias & D. Taylor 5390 (holotype: MO! [barcode MO -5509445 ]; isotype: F! [barcode V 0205843 F ]) GoogleMaps .

Diagnosis.

Klarobelia icoja resembles K. lucida in the size of the monocarps and the thin fruit wall and K. pumila in the leaves, but it can be distinguished from K. lucida by the leaves with a length up to 19 cm (vs. 13 cm), narrower leaves with a length-width ratio of 3.3–3.5 (vs. 1.8–2.8), acute base (vs. obtuse to acute), and shorter pedicels of 12–17 mm long (vs. 17–68 mm long). K. icoja can be distinguished from K. pumila by the monocarps, which are longer (19–22 mm vs. 9–15 mm) and wider (10–11 mm vs. 6–8 mm), and by the longer stipes (28–37 mm vs. 12–20 mm).

Description.

Tree up to 4 m tall. Young twigs and developing leaves sparsely covered with yellowish-brown, appressed hairs. Petiole 4–8 mm long, 1.0– 1.5 mm wide, verrucose, glabrous. Lamina 11.3–19.0 cm long, 3.5–5.7 cm wide, length-width ratio 3.3–3.5, chartaceous, slightly bullate, elliptic, base acute, apex gradually acuminate, light olive green above and dark olive green below, glabrous above and below, primary vein impressed (to flat) above, 6–9 secondary veins per side, distance between secondary veins 11–22 mm, angles with primary vein 60–75 °, loop-forming at right to obtuse angles, distance between loops and leaf margin 4–7 mm. Inflorescences ramiflorous, on the leafless part of the twig, single-flowered. Short shoot 2–3 mm long, 2.0– 2.5 mm in diam. when fruiting. Bracts not observed. Pedicels 12–17 mm long, 1.5–2.0 mm in diam. (in fruit). Fruit of ca. 10 monocarps (scars suggest up to ca. 25 monocarps), orange-red in vivo, reddish brown to black in sicco, ellipsoid, 19–22 mm long, 10–11 mm in diam., glabrous, verrucose, raphe visible through fruit wall, stipes 28–37 mm long, 1 mm in diam., fruiting receptacle subglobose, 7–9 mm in diam., 4–6 mm high. Seed ellipsoid, 21 mm long, 10 mm in diam., brownish-orange, raphe a sinuous groove, ruminations in four lamellate parts.

Local names.

Peru: Jicoja or Icoja, based on the holotype label.

Distribution and ecology.

The species is known from the northern part of Ucayali, in the vicinity of Aguaytía, Perú (Fig. 3 View Figure 3 ; only the locality of the type specimen is presented here, given the absence of latitude-longitude data of the second specimen). It grows in forests; information about its elevation range is unknown. The label of Mathias & Taylor 5036 mentions that the fruits are orange-red. Most monocarps in both collections have been removed while the stipe has remained on the fruit. In Annonaceae , monocarps that detach from fruit do so with the stipe attached to the monocarp, leaving scars of the stipe on the fruiting receptacle. The detachment of the monocarp only in this species is indicative of zoochory.

Preliminary conservation status.

The label of the type specimen does not mention latitude and longitude. We took these from an earlier collection by the same collector on the same day (Mathias & Taylor 5368, Miconia alternidomatia Michelang. ). To date, Klarobelia icoja is known only from two collections made over 50 years ago in two consecutive years in the vicinity of Aguaytía, with an AOO and EOO of 4 km 2. It falls under the IUCN category of data deficient (DD). A more detailed analysis of the population must be done to correctly assess its conservation status. Given the general geographical pattern of Klarobelia , characterized by small allopatric distributions, this is likely to be accomplished by more thorough inventories of the known area of occurrence.

Etymology.

The specific epithet refers to the indigenous name of the species. “ Icoja, ” “ hicoja, ” or “ jicoja, ” however, is not unique to this species and refers to Annonaceae in general, as it has been reported for Peruvian species in the genera Anaxagorea ( Maas and Westra 1984) , Bocageopsis ( Maas et al. 2007) , Cremastosperma ( Pirie et al. 2018 a) , Fusaea ( Chatrou and He 1999) , Guatteria ( Maas et al. 2015) , and Unonopsis ( Maas et al. 2007) . The name icoja (pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet: i'koxa) is used by the indigenous Quechua people ( Sanz-Biset et al. 2009). This is suggesting the name may stem from Quechua or Runa simi, the indigenous language family that originated in central Peru, even though Sanz-Biset et al. (2009) indicate that indigenous Quechua plant names have been mixed with Spanish to varying degrees.

Additional specimen examined.

Peru • [Ucayali: Province Padre Abad], vicinity of Aguaytía, high ground in forest southeast of house, don Diogenes del Aguila, east of Aguaytía, between Pucallpa road and Aguaytía river , 29 Jun 1960, M. E. Mathias & D. Taylor 5036 ( MO!) .