Pedicel : slender, 3-9mm long, suberect in bud-divergent or drooping at anthesis
Ovary : narrowly cylindric-fusiform, densely canescent or strigillose, 6-11mm long x 2-3mm wide
Tube color : pale pink to lavender or light red
Tube shape : subcylindric, canescent-strigillose outside, densely pilose inside in lower part
Tube dimensions : 14-22mm long x 1.5-3mm wide and slightly bulbous at the base, gradually widened above until 3-5 (to 6)mm wide at the rim
Sepal color upper : pale pink to lavender or light red
Sepal color lower :
Sepal shape : lanceolate, acute, spreading at anthesis
Sepal tips :
Sepal dimensions : 6-10mm long x 3-4mm wide
Corolla opening color : dark purple
Corolla mature color :
Corolla shape : narrowly elliptic-oblong, acute, suberect to spreading at anthesis
Corolla silhouette :
Petal margins :
Corolla dimensions : 5-10mm long x 2-3.5mm wide
Nectary : green, shallowly 4-lobed, about 1.5mm high
Stamens :
Filaments : deep purple, 5-6mm x 3-4mm long
Anthers : oblong, 1.5-2mm long x about 1mm wide, dull white
Pistil :
Style : glabrous, pink-purple
Stigma : capitate, subtetragonous, 2-3mm long x 2-3.5mm wide, 4-lobed in upper stigma, pink, slightly exserted beyond the anthers or in contact with the antesepalous stamens at anthesis
MISCELLANEOUS
Flower : single
Flowers : few to numerous, axillary in upper leaf nodes or in terminal bracteate racemes, rachis 4 to 22 cm long, bracts narrowly elliptic, short petiolate, loosely spaced
Flower size :
Flower display :
Flower bud :
Fruit : cylindric, 15-25mm long x 6-10mm wide, dull green to flushed purple, strigillose, slightly verrucose before maturity
Seed : tan, 1.3-1.6mm long x 0.8mm wide
Habit : erect to scandent shrubs with suberect to spreading branches
Hardiness:
Height : 1-3m
Light/Climate :
Optimal light conditions :
Remarks : found in 1843 in the Venezolan Andes, flowers are 3,5cm long, natural hybrids with F. gehrigeri, F. putumayensis and F. venusta are known
Named : after the very dark purple/blackish petals
Lookalikes :
Year (of first description) : 1849
Botanist : Linden Jean-Jules
Authors : Linden ex Planchon 1849
Original publication : Fl. Serres Jard. Eur. 5: 481 1849
Habitat : scattered to locally frequent in forest openings, stream banks, along roadsides, and in moist thickets in mid elevation cloud forest in Venezuela, from Lara to Tachira at elevations from 2,100 to 2,650 meters, and in Colombia (in all three cordilleras) in the Cordillera Oriental known only from Norte de Santander near the Venezuelan border, in the Cordillera Central in Tolima, Quindio, Caldas, and Antioquia and in the Cordillera Occidental from Antioquia south to Cauca
Elevation : 1700-2700
Native country : Colombia, Venezuela
Synonyms : F. atrorubra, Johnston 1925, F. adpressibilis, Steyermark 1952
Gametic chromosome number n = 11
FOLIAGE
Leaves : mostly ternate, opposite or rarely quatemate, membranous, smooth to sulcate nerved, petioles strigillose, 12 to 35 (to 48) mm long, stipules narrowly triangular, dark purple, 1 to 2 mm long, about 0.8 mm wide, succulent at the base, subulate at the apex, subpersistent
Foliage color upper side : medium-dark green and strigillose to subglabrous
Foliage color lower side : pale green and strigillose, especially along the veins
Leaf dimensions : (4-) 7-15(-18)cm long x (2-) 3-8(-9)cm wide
Leaf shape : mostly elliptic or obovate, but also spatulate or subpanduriform
Leaf margin : remotely gland-denticulate
Leaf tip : acute to rounded
Leaf base : acute to attenuate or cuneate and sometimes noticeably unequal
Pubescence :
Veins : secondary veins 11 to 16(~20) on either side of the midvein, sometimes red tinged
Stems :
Branches : young growth densely canescent with appressed or less often suberect hairs, branchlets terete, 2 to 5 mm thick, dull purple to light green, older branches with light brown, splitting bark
