Sinningia ramboi

1. Origin
2. Resolution
3. Flowerstalk
4. Leaf arrangement
5. The Junction
6. Feature table
7. Publication

This page was created from a copy of the original "Desafinado" page which is still available for historical interest (or historical ennui, as the case may be).

Origin

Seed obtained from the AGGS (now Gesneriad Society) Seed Fund under the name S. sp. "Waechter" yielded two different kinds of plant.  The first matched what Alain Chautems had applied the holding name sp. "Waechter" to, and is now believed to be Sinningia polyantha, which is described on its own page.  I set seed on a couple of these plants, and they came true from seed (the resulting plants had the same properties as the parents).

The other had flowers which bore similar "douglasii-type" streaks, but otherwise was quite different.  The seedlings of this second type were, however, quite similar to one another, suggesting that if the seeds were of hybrid origin, they were likely to be an F1, that is, a cross between two species, which would account for the relative lack of variation within this second type.

I set seed on the second type, and these seedlings were quite similar to their parents, suggesting the parents weren't of hybrid origin.

Because of the differences, I gave the second group of plants the name "Desafinado", from the Portuguese word meaning "out of tune".  It is also the title of the first bossa nova hit from back in the 60s, and a much finer tune than the ear-worm "Girl from Ipanema", and also written by the Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Resolution

In 2014, the puzzle was resolved when this plant was published under the name Sinningia ramboi, named after "Father Balduino Rambo (1906–1961), a well known botanist of Rio Grande do Sul and active defender of the forest and grassland landscapes of the northeast highlands. Rambo also collected the earliest herbarium specimen of this new species." [Ferreira et al.]. This same reference has a map showing the very restricted range of this species about 15 km from the Atlantic Ocean on the boundary between the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

Leaf Arrangement

Here is a picture of the whole plant, with semi-glossy green leaves in pairs.  Sinningia polyantha has tough hairy leaves in whorls of three.

Also evident is the redness of all the stems, flowerstalks, and petioles, in great contrast to those of S. polyantha, which are mostly green or ruddy brown.

The Junction

One of the most striking features of S. ramboi is the sharp line at the junction between the shoot and the tuber.  This junction is actually a couple millimeters up the shoot.  In the fall, when the plant is going dormant, this junction turns into the abscission layer: the stem above the junction falls off, while the stub remains.  A couple of moon-crater-like stubs can be seen in this picture, one just below the two shoots and the other just to the right of them (and another older one, in gray, between the other two stubs).

In the picture, the junction is not an abscission layer yet, since the photograph was taken in early spring [April 2009], before the plant had even bloomed.

Several more dormant buds, colored bright red, can be seen.  These buds, scattered over the tuber but clustered around the stubs of previous years' shoots, are an attractive feature in themselves.  Presumably, they are located in the "axils" of the stem that the tuber represents.

Also see a picture of the tuber.  Another page has a picture showing a sprouting tuber.