Figure 1. Branches, inflorescences and leaves. The corolla is pale-green prior to anthesis (to the right of center) but after it opens it becomes white and remains white.   In the flower at the center all anthers have dehisced while in the flower at right some of the anthers have dehisced while others have not. The stigma is green and the style is whitish; the upper half of the ovary is green, and the lower half of the ovary is surrounded by an orange disk, presumably the source of nectar.
This plant was grown from seed of the type collection by Thomas Mione in Connecticut, USA; photo by Thomas Mione.

Figure 2. Flower at left was pressed in Ecuador (type collection) and the flower at right is fresh (not pressed) and was removed from a plant grown from seed of the type collection. The size difference we see between these flowers is almost certainly due to growing conditions, not genetic differences. The plant in Ecuador (at left) was probably competing for nutrients, water and sun while the plant at right was not competing. The units along the left edge are mm. Photo by Thomas Mione in the laboratory of Gregory J. Anderson.

Floral Biology Of Jaltomata lojae

Observations on floral phenology were made in Connecticut, USA, in May of 1992 and March to May of 1998.   Flowers remain open 5 to 7 days (mean 5.7 days, n = 9 flowers) and close each night.   Within an inflorescence one to four flowers are open at a time.   The corolla is pale-green prior to anthesis but after it opens for the first time it becomes white and remains white.   Anthers dehisced prior to 8:30 am.   The anthers of a flower either dehisce a few at a time over the course of several hours, or two or three of the anthers dehisce one day and the others dehisce the next day.   Some flowers exhibited one day of protogyny with the stigma protruding through the partially open corolla.  

To examine seed set flowers were manually pollinated during the pistillate and hermaphroditic phases; undehisced anthers were removed at the time of pollination. Two out of three flowers manually pollinated during the pistillate phase set seed, as did many (percentage not calculated) of the flowers that were manually pollinated during the hermaphroditic phase.   In the greenhouse plants did not set fruit unless hand-pollinated.   This is likely due to herkogamy: the stigma is located 3 to 8 mm from the anthers.  

Nectar drops at the base of the corolla (alternating with the stamens) were large enough to be observed by eye.   The broad, orange ovary disk (Figure 1) is concentric around the green ovary and increases the diameter of the ovary by 1 to 1.5 mm relative to the diameter the ovary would be without the disk.   Nectar seems to be secreted by the ovarian disk but may also be secreted by the base of the corolla.  

Floral fragrance was evaluated by seven people who were blindfolded and asked to describe the fragrance of an empty jar and then a jar containing flowers.   Jars were uncapped seconds before being placed in close proximity to the nose.   Flowers produce a subtle fragrance that was described as licorice-like, vanilla-like, or faintly sweet by seven people polled (two of these people also detected a fragrance in the empty/control jar) and the authors.
 
To look for structures that may release scent (osmophores), flowers were stained in 0.01% neutral red for several hours and then observed with bright field microscopy (Kearns and Inouye 1993).   The stigma (including papillae) stained darkly with neutral red but the style did not.   Anthers and pollen stained darkly while filaments did not.   Multicellular glands, located on the abaxial face of the corolla and both faces of the calyx, stained darkly except for the stalk cell.   Similar glands have been described on the leaves of Solanum (Seithe 1979) and Physalis (Seithe and Sullivan 1990).   Neither the corolla margin hairs nor the hairs of the filaments absorbed stain.   On the multicellular finger hairs only the glandular tip, when present, absorbed stain.   Hand-sections of epidermal tissue of the ovary disk, stained and then observed with a compound microscope, revealed that the nectary disk absorbs stain only in the immediate vicinity of the stomata.   The guard cells stained deeply, and the cells surrounding the guard cells also absorbed stain but staining was less intense.  

Taxonomy

Jaltomata lojae is similar to several species, compared at this link and is distinguished by the following features: finger hairs borne by the leaves and stems; a white, broadly infundibular to rotate corolla; exserted stigma and a broad nectary disk.   Corolla color changes from pale-green to white at anthesis. Flowers are self-compatible, herkogamous, and sometimes protogynous.   Microscopic, densely staining, multicellular glands (Figure 11) are located on the perianth. The following description is based on the holotype, and plants grown from seed of the type collection in the University of Connecticut and Central Connecticut State University greenhouses.  

Huancabamba

Figure 7. Comparison of the type collection (right) and a plant grown in Connecticut from seed of the type collection (left). The plant at left was pressed in Connecticut, after being grown from seed of the type collection; the plant at right is the type collection and was pressed in Ecuador. The plant at right was probably competing for nutrients, water and sun while the plant at left was not competing. Plant at left grown by and photo by Thomas Mione in the laboratory of Gregory J. Anderson.

Collection