Vallea stipularis (capuli)

Vallea stipularis is a beautiful, evergreen, South American shrub with masses of pinkish-red or crimson, bell-shaped flowers.

Vallea stipularis
Vallea stipularis (Image: Richard Wilford)

Species information

  • Scientific name: Vallea stipularis L.f.
  • Common name(s): capuli, pera-caspi (Spanish-Quechua name meaning ‘hard pear’)
  • Conservation status: Not known to be threatened.
  • Habitat: Forest and scrub, along forest margins, and in páramo (grassland) vegetation above the cloud forest.
  • Key uses: Ornamental.
  • Known hazards: None known.

Taxonomy

  • Class: Equisetopsida
  • Subclass: Magnoliidae
  • Superorder: Rosanae
  • Order: Oxalidales
  • Family: Elaeocarpaceae
  • Genus: Vallea

About this species

For a long time Vallea stipularis was thought to be the only species in the genus Vallea, which is named in honour of the Italian botanist Felice Valle (d. 1747), who wrote an early account of the flora of Corsica. Then, in 1988, a second species was discovered in Ecuador and described as V. ecuadorensis. Vallea stipularis is a shrub or a tree with hairless ovaries and styles, whereas V. ecuadorensis is a climbing shrub or tree with densely velvety ovaries and styles. Vallea stipularis has been cultivated in Europe since 1928, but is rather frost-tender, so has never become common. It is usually grown against a wall or in a cool, shady greenhouse.

Geography & Distribution

Native to South America, where it occurs in the Andes Mountains in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, at 1,600–4,000 m above sea level.

Description

A many-branched, evergreen shrub or tree up to 18 m tall. The leaves are heart-shaped or pear-shaped, sometimes lobed, up to 10 cm long, dark green, and paler beneath, with tufts of hairs in the vein axils. The small, bell-shaped flowers are pinkish-red or crimson and borne on branching stalks. They have five sepals and five, three-lobed, petals, around 13 mm long. The ovary and styles are hairless. There are 15–60 stamens.

Illustration from Curtis's Botanical Magazine

Hand-coloured lithograph of Vallea stipularis after a watercolour by Lillian Snelling

Hand-coloured lithograph of Vallea stipularis after a watercolour by Lillian Snelling (1934), taken from Curtis's Botanical Magazine (Image: RBG Kew)

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Editor: Martyn Rix) provides an international forum of particular interest to botanists and horticulturists, plant ecologists and those with a special interest in botanical illustration.

Now well over two hundred years old, the Magazine is the longest running botanical periodical featuring colour illustrations of plants. Each four-part volume contains 24 plant portraits reproduced from watercolour originals by leading international botanical artists. Detailed but accessible articles combine horticultural and botanical information, history, conservation and economic uses of the plants described.

Published for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
See the Wiley-Blackwell Subscription Information page for rates (for both print and online).

Uses

Vallea stipularis is grown as an ornamental, although it is not common in cultivation. The wood is smooth and polishes well, and is also resinous and burns easily. The roots are used locally for flavouring.

This species at Kew

Vallea stipularis can be seen growing in the Rock Garden at Kew, where it flowers in the spring (after a mild winter), and again in late summer or autumn.

Both pressed and dried and alcohol-preserved specimens of Vallea stipularis are held in Kew’s Herbarium, where they are available to researchers from around the world, by appointment. The details of some of these, including images, can be seen on-line in the Herbarium Catalogue.

Specimens of wood from Vallea stipularis are held in Kew’s Economic Botany Collection, and are available to researchers, by appointment.


References and credits

Coode, M.J.E. (1985). Aristotelia and Vallea, closely allied in Elaeocarpaceae. Kew Bull. 40: 479-507.

Jaramillo Azanza, J. (1988). Notes of Ecuadorean Vallea (Elaeocarpaceae) with the description of a new species. Nord. J. Bot. 8: 19–23.

Joyal, E. (1987). Ethnobotanical field notes from Ecuador: Camp, Prieto, Jørgensen, and Giler. Econ. Bot. 41(2): 163-189.

Kunkel, G. (1984). Plants for Human Consumption: an Annotated Checklist of the Edible Phanerogams and Ferns. Koeltz Scientific Books, Koenigstein.

The Plant List (2010). Vallea stipularis. http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-2462465 (accessed 30 May 2011).

Kew Science Editor: Martyn Rix
Kew contributors: Steve Davis (Sustainable Uses Group)
Copyediting: Emma Tredwell

While every effort has been taken to ensure that the information contained in these pages is reliable and complete, the notes on hazards, edibility and suchlike included here are recorded information and do not constitute recommendations. No responsibility will be taken for readers’ own actions. Full website terms and conditions.




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