Dischidia puberula

Dischidia puberula was first collected for scientific analysis by French botanist Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré during the Freycinet expedition to the Mariana Islands in 1819. Gaudichaud mentioned in his botanical survey an unnamed Dischidia species growing up trees on Guam, although he recorded no indigenous name for the plant.{{Cite book |last=Freycinet |first=Louis Claude Desaulses de |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/98627#page/98/mode/1up |title=Voyage autour du monde, entrepris par ordre du roi. Exécuté sur les corvettes de S.M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820 |last2=Freycinet |first2=Louis Claude Desaulses de |last3=Arago |first3=Jacques |last4=Bevalet |first4=Antoine-Germain |last5=Blanchard |first5=E. |last6=Chazal |first6=Antoine |last7=Clermont-Tonnerre |first7=Aimé-Marie-Gaspard |last8=Corbière |first8=Jacques Joseph |last9=Coutant |first9=L. |date=1826 |publisher=Chez Pillet aîné |volume=[t.4] (1826) [Text] |location=Paris |pages=82}} Gaudichaud's specimens are housed in the Geneva Herbarium{{Cite web |title=Geneva Herbaria Catalogue |url=https://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/chg/adetail.php?id=129864&base=img&lang=en |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.ville-ge.ch}} and the holotype is in Paris.{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/437974863/media/9f0d394bfa2a012fc0c831eeb1adf607 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org}} Gaudichaud may have mistaken the plant for Dischidia bengalensis.{{Cite book |last=Safford |first=William Edwin |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/125671#page/85/mode/1up |title=The useful plants of the Island of Guam; with an introductory account of the physical features and natural history of the island, of the character and history of its people, and of their agriculture |last2=Safford |first2=William Edwin |date=1905 |publisher=Govt. Print. Off |location=Washington |pages=56, 63, 65, 263}} In 1844, the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle first described the species in the scientific literature based on the specimen from Paris and provided the name of French botanist Joseph Decaisne as the authority.{{Cite book |last=Candolle |first=Augustin Pyramus de |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/7157#page/639/mode/1up |title=Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, sive, Enumeratio contracta ordinum generum specierumque plantarum huc usque cognitarium, juxta methodi naturalis, normas digesta |last2=Candolle |first2=Alphonse de |last3= |first3= |date=1844 |publisher=Sumptibus Sociorum Treuttel et Würtz |volume=8 |location=Paris |pages=631–632 |language=Latin |trans-title=Preliminary publication of the natural system of the vegetable kingdom}}

Detailed descriptions of the species have been made by de Candolle, Safford, and Fosberg. Dischidia puberula as a yellow-green creeper festooning tree trunks, including coconut. Upper branches spread and hang from their host. Stems are warty with soft hairs and rooting at nodes. Leaves are connected in an opposite arrangement on the stem by a short petiole (1-2.2 cm). Leaves are thick, fleshy, and oval-elliptic with acute angle at the tip. Flowers are on a very short peduncle in 2s or 3s; flowers are small, urn-shaped, fleshy, pilose, somewhat glaucous, yellowish or greenish yellow, with a pale orange corolla below, and yellowish lobes within.{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/3414442042/media/e27ea297148d20ddbd9644619b0e807e |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org}}{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/3414425052/media/a95804e893a590f74813acd79e0d9fd8 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org}}{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/2515028806/media/adc44861133bffc01202eb149e895a94 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org}}{{Cite journal |last=Fosberg |first=F. Raymond (Francis Raymond) |date=1960 |title=The vegetation of Micronesia. 1, General descriptions, the vegetation of the Marianas Islands, and a detailed consideration of the vegetation of Guam |url=https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/items/b7a6abd7-e958-47d7-98aa-89efd6c2da30 |journal=Bulletin of the AMNH |volume=119 |issue=1 |pages=488 |via=American Museum of Natural History}} De Candolle, in the original description, described flowers having 2 or 3 petals, whereas William Safford noted petals and calyxes of 5, with obtuse divisions. Stamens of 5 are connate. Anthers have a membranous tip with 1 pollen mass in each cell. Pendulous coronal processes are adnate to the stamens, erect, and split above. De Candolle found the corolla to be similar to the Southeast Asian Dischidia punctata,{{Cite web |title=Dischidia punctata (Blume) Decne. {{!}} Plants of the World Online {{!}} Kew Science |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:97023-1 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=Plants of the World Online |language=en}} but with Dischidia puberula having hairs. Stone (1970) commented that the fruits had never been observed,{{Cite journal |last=Stone |first=B.C. |year=1970 |title=The Flora of Guam. A Manual for the Identification of the Vascular Plants of the Island |url=https://micronesica.org/volumes/6 |journal=Micronesica |volume=6 (1/2) |pages=488}} although Shiokemuri has posted images of the elongated spike-like fruit of Dischidia puberula from 2019. The plant exudes copious milky sap, consistent with other milkweeds.{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/607738532/media/c21969ad5425f2c90f2e87c407a80328 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org}} Merrill (1914) and Glassman (1949) make only passing reference to the plant,{{Cite book |last=Merrill |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/209635#page/5/mode/1up |title=The Philippine journal of science |last2= |first2= |last3= |first3= |last4= |first4= |last5= |first5= |last6= |last7= |last8= |last9= |date=1913 |publisher=Bureau of Science - Industrial Technology Development Institute (Philippines) |volume=9 |location=Manila |pages=131}}{{Cite book |last=Glassman |first=S.F. |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8441519#page/192/mode/1up |title=Journal of the Arnold Arboretum |last2= |first2= |last3= |first3= |date=1948 |publisher=Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University |volume=29 |location=Cambridge, Mass |pages=137}} and it was not mentioned in Costion's checklist of Micronesian endemic plants.{{Cite journal |last=Costion |first=C.M. |last2=Lorence |first2=D.H. |year=2012 |title=The Endemic Plants of Micronesia: A Geographical Checklist and Commentary |url=https://micronesica.org/sites/default/files/3_costion.lorence_micronesica_431.pdf |journal=Micronesica |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=51-100}}

Leaf tissue from preserved specimens was sampled for chemical analysis by Eliot Smith and Edward Straw in 2023.{{Cite web |title=Occurrence Detail 5004322901 |url=https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/5004322901 |access-date=2025-02-05 |website=www.gbif.org |language=en}}

File:Dpuberula insitu.jpg

The University of Guam Herbarium records Dischidia puberula as being native to Guam, Rota and Saipan.{{Cite web |title=Vascular Plant Distribution in the Mariana Islands |url=https://www.uog.edu/_resources/files/herbarium/rl_2006.pdf |access-date=2025-02-13 |website=University of Guam Herbarium}} The species has been observed most commonly on Guam, in both the northern limestone plateau and volcanic south.{{Cite web |title=Dischidia puberula |url=https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/956197-Dischidia-puberula |access-date=2025-02-05 |website=iNaturalist |language=en}} P. Moore found it to be common in the limestone forests of Guam as of 1980.{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/3751292886/media/7a9c3fc38f053d89dad6271efc6531be |access-date=2025-02-05 |website=www.gbif.org}} It has also been observed on Rota, southwest of the Taga Quarry.{{Cite web |title=Occurrence Detail 36526961 |url=https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/36526961 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org |language=en}} In 2006, Tatyana Livshultz from the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University identified two herbarium specimens collected from Vonikoro (Solomon Island) as Dischidia puberula (rather than the Solomon Island endemic Dischidia cominsii); the flowers from these specimens were described as red with yellow petal tips,{{Cite web |title=Specimen: Dischidia cominsii Hemsl. - Flora of Solomon Islands |url=http://siflora.nmns.edu.tw/specimen/SITW10760-TNM-001/ |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=siflora.nmns.edu.tw}} or pink petals with white tips.{{Cite web |title=Image zoom |url=https://www.gbif.org/tools/zoom/simple.html?src=//api.gbif.org/v1/image/cache/occurrence/5004295614/media/fe60dfd76236d1f36dd9b09a6778bd2f |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=www.gbif.org}} However, as of 2025, Plants of the World Online still lists Dischidia puberula as being endemic only to the Mariana Islands.{{Cite web |title=Dischidia cominsii Hemsl. {{!}} Plants of the World Online {{!}} Kew Science |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:96915-1 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=Plants of the World Online |language=en}} The IUCN has not yet assessed the species for conservation status.

File:CJP07495.jpg|Epiphytic growth habit of Dischidia puberula observed in northern Guam.

File:Dischidia puberula 02.jpg|Opposite leaf arrangement. Guam.

File:Dischidia puberula 03.jpg|Flower buds of Dischidia puberula. Guam.

File:Dischidia puberula 06.jpg|Flower buds. Guam

File:Dischidia puberula 05.jpg|Flower bud of Dischidia puberula and roots from node. Guam

File:Dischidia puberula 07.jpg|Flower buds and mature seed pod (elongated brown spike) of Dischidia puberula. Guam.

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puberula