Critical studies on the sexuality of southern Argentinian Ericaceae

Summary

The family Ericaceae is considered to be mostly hermaphroditic and only in a few cases unisexual or dioecious. Five Argentinian species (Gaultheria antarctica Hook, f., G. caespitosa P. et E., G. phillyreaefolia (Pers.) Sleumer, G. tenuifolia (Phil.) Sleumer and Pernettya insana (Molina) Gunckel), previously described as hermaphroditic, were found by us to have two types of flowers: female and male. Female flowers have both a rudimentary androecium with stamens, in which the anthers are small, collapsed and without pollen grains or are reduced to filaments only, and a perfect gynoecium with well-developed ovules filling the carpel locules. The stigma is expanded and of the wet, papillate type, with copious to slight secretion. The stigma protrudes above the anthers. Male flowers have a well-developed androecium included within the corolla and a reduced gynoecium. Anthers are as long as the filaments, except in G. caespitosa. Pollen is shed as tetrads which are 100% viable. Ovule development ranges from total absence, passing through aborted ovules of various sizes to apparently normal ones. Stigmata are neither expanded nor papillate, except in Pernettya insana. Only in two species do the style and stigma extend beyond the level of the anthers. Heterostyly does not occur in any of the five species studied. Functional dioecy thus characterizes the five species considered and is reported for the first time in the genus Gaultheria.