Hechtia edulis I.Ramírez, Espejo & López-Ferr.
Literature references:
Comments:
- -Distribution and habitat. Hechtia edulis has been collected in Copper Canyon National Park, in Barranca de Batopilas and Barranca de Candamëna, two of 20 canyons that are located in southwestern Chihuahua State in the Sierra Madre Occidental. There are ca. 40 bromeliaceous records for 10 out of 67 municipalities in the state of Chihuahua (Espejo- Serna et al., 2004), indicating a lack of information on plant diversity of this unexplored and inaccessible state. There are only two genera of the Bromeliaceae (Pitcairnia L’Hér. and Tillandsia L.), with one and eight species, respectively, reported for the area; H. edulis is the first record of the genus for the state. Individuals of this species grow as lithophytes on exposed, sheer cliffs in low caducifolious forest and oak-pine forest, forming small colonies of one to four rosettes.
IUCN Red List category. Hechtia edulis is only known from three localities from the same area. Much of the area is still unexplored, and therefore it is possible that larger populations exist. The species is subject to anthropogenic pressure (leaves are eaten raw by the native Tarahumara people in the region); however, based on this inadequate information, we assess its conservation status as Data Deficient (DD), according to IUCN Red List criteria (IUCN, 2008).
Phenology and reproductive biology. We first became aware of the existence of this species during our study of Robert Bye’s collections (4474 and 8855) during a stay at the Missouri Botanical Garden in the summer of 2004. Both vouchers featured staminate plants. A year later, a collecting trip was planned to obtain complete material of both sexes in Barranca de Batopilas during September 2005. We were successful in finding the populations; the plants, however, only carried old, open fruits. We collected a few rosettes and were eventually able to flower pistillate plants under cultivation and prepared the specimens cited here. This species blooms from June to August and fruits immediately after, with the fruits dehiscing seeds until the next year, probably more so during the beginning of the rainy season. Fruiting percentage appears to be 100%, as in many other species in the genus, with pollination most likely by bees based on color and shape of the corolla. —See Ramirez et al. 2011
