Anchietea is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae, with six accepted species, found in tropical South America.
Lianas or reclining shrubs with oblong-lanceolate to ovate leaves. The flowers, which may be unisexual or bisexual, are in axillary racemoids or fascicles, with a white to orange corollas that are strongly zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetrical) with the long bottom petal weakly differentiated with a well exserted (projecting) spur. On the five stamens, the filaments are strongly connate (fused) with the two lowest anthers calcarate (spurred) and possessing a small dorsal connective appendage that is entire and ovate. In the gynoecium, the style is rostellate (beaked). The fruit is a very thin walled bladder-like capsule. There are many seeds per carpel, that are orbicular in outline and strongly flattened and encircled with a low interrupted ridge, or broad wing.[5][6][7] The genus is characterized by membranaceous inflated capsules that usually prematurely expose the strongly flattened seeds to maturation.[8]
The genus Anchietea was first described by Saint-Hilaire in 1824, with a single species Anchietea salutaris, which thus is considered the type species.[9] Therefore, the genus bears his name, A.St.-Hil., as the botanical authority.[4] Shortly before this, Martius had described a species in a related genera, Noisettia pyrifolia.[10] In 1831, Don transferred this species to Anchietea, noting that the specific epithet pyrifolia referred to "pear-shaped leaves".[11][12] A revision of the genus in 2013 identified A. salutaris and A. pyrifolia as conspecific, and since A. pyrifolia had priority (as Noisettia pyrifolia) it is the type species.[12]
Early taxonomic schemes, primarily based on floral morphology, such as Bentham and Hooker (1862)[13] placed Anchietea within subfamily Violoideae, tribe Violeae, subtribe Violinae.[6][14] Anchietea is one of four lianescent genera in Violaceae, together with Calyptrion Ging., Agatea A.Gray and the more recently discovered (2003) Hybanthopsis Paula-Souza.[15] Historically, these genera were distributed among separate subtribes, with Anchietea within subtribe Violinae with Calyptrion and Hybanthopsis and Agatea in subtribe Hybanthinae.[5][14]
Molecular phylogenetic studies have now grouped these four genera together into a single lianescent clade, one of four within the family Violaceae.[7]
The genus Anchietea is named for the sixteenth century Jesuit missionary and naturalist Joseph of Anchieta, who described the Brazilian flora.[11][16]
Estimates of the number of species in Anchietea has varied considerably between five[5][17] and nine,[1][2] but historically, the genus has been poorly described and new species have continued to be described. Paula-Souza and colleagues recognize six species,[18][8][7] having added A. ferrucciae in 2010 as a new description[8] and A. ballardii in 2016.[19][20]
Extra-Amazonian South America, in the Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests (SDTF) of South America.[19][21][2]
Anchietea is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae, with six accepted species, found in tropical South America.
