Art by Alice Tangerini

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 1 from January 2001.

Commelina species are difficult to distinguish from herbarium specimens alone. Thus it is most unusual for Robert Faden to describe a new species based on a single dried collection. Faden made an exception for Commelina disperma Faden, the type and sole collection of which, Bidgood, Sitoni, Vollesen & Whitehouse 4153, came from near Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, because the material was unusually complete, including base of the plant, mature capsules and seeds, and kodachrome slides of the flowers, taken by Kaj Vollesen. This enabled an accurate description and contrast with other African forest Commelina species with two-seeded capsules, C. macrosperma J. K. Morton from West Africa and C. zenkeri C. B. Clarke, which ranges from Uganda to Cameroon. The new species has been submitted to Novon.