Puya tuberosa Mez
Literature references:
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Comments:
- As documented in the hitherto inedited manuscript Plantae Samaipatenses, the Bohemian botanist Thaddeus P Haenke visited the region of Samaipata (Haenke 1800).
It is probable that during this trip to the archaeological site "El Fuerte" Haenke found and collected the small puya that was described by Carl Christian Mez as Puya tuberosa (Mez 1896). The type locality is imprecise, referring the plant to Peru. In this context, it is important to know that Bolivia was called Alto Peru before gaining its independŽence in 1825.
In 1950 the Bolivian botanist Martin Cardenas collected a small puya close to Cuesta de Monos, near Samaipata, which was sent to Lyman B. Smith. Smith was the first to recognize that the plant from Samaipata was very similar to the type of Puya tuberosa that had not been found again since 1800. In 1954 Smith published an amendment clarifying that Puya tuberosa comes from the Bolivian territory and not from Peru (Smith 1954).
In Samaipata, for instance on the "El Fuerte" sandstone rock and its vicinities, there are two types of puyas to be observed: one is the small Puya tuberosa with filiform leaves (Fig. 4). It grows on very shallow soil, is caespitose, and has simple inflorescences. The other one grows on more profound soils, is larger and has broader and longer leaves (Fig. 5, Fig. 6). In a publication on the flora of the "El Fuerte" valley the plant was erroneously called P. dyckioides (Baker) Mez (Ibisch, Rojas et al. 1996). Observing the Samaipata plants we have come to the conclusion that it is actually the environment, which influences the morphology of the plants. Whenever the plants grow at richer and more humid sites, the plants are larger, have broader leaves (Fig. 7) and bipinnate inflorescences.
Actually, in the region of occurrence of Puya tuberosa, P. hromadnikii, P. vallo-grandensis, P. vallo-grandensis var. simplex, P. serranoensis and P. serranoensis var. brevispica it is possible to find plants that are similar to one or the other, however, representing a morphological continuum with completely unclear species limits (compare Fig. 8, Fig. 9). Actually Rauh decided to establish several new species on single specimens which do not differ very clearly. Thus we suggest that - until molecular studies shed more light on the species identities - Puya tuberosa should be understood as a morphologically more or less variable taxon which is distributed in the dry valleys of the Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija departments. —See Vasquez & Ibisch 2007c p. 57(3): 102-111
