Vickianthus alamanii, with no common name, is a species of shrub or subshrub native only to Mexico. It belongs to the family Asteraceae.
Description These are some of the most noteworthy features of Vickianthus alamanii:
Stems bearing simple hairs, or trichomes, are partly woody at the base and stand up to tall.
Leaves with short petioles arise individually along stems. Their blades are widest below their middles, gradually taper toward sharp tips, and are variously hairy with few to many dot-like glands; upper surfaces are rough to the touch. Blades at the base are up to long and wide, diminishing in size upward. Blade margins are saw-toothed to almost toothless.
Inflorescences with long peduncles are branched, broad and somewhat flat-topped or slightly rounded, with lower flower stalks longer than upper ones.
Broadly bell-shaped floral heads consist of up to 80 "disc florets" with cylindrical, reddish to violet corollas up to long, with the lobes up to about long. There are no flat, petal-like "ray florets." Below the florets, up to 80 involucral bracts are papery to membraneous, arranged in 5 or 6 series, often purplish, with the outer ones curving downwards, and with spiny tips up to long. The bracts form an involucre up to tall.
One-seeded, cypsela-type fruits are slender, 8-10 ribbed, and usually bear a dense cover of dot-like glands. Pappuses consist of around 30 bristles up to long.
Distribution Vickianthus alamanii is endemic only to the central and southern Mexican states of Campeche, Colima, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, México, Michoacán, Morelia, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Veracruz.
Habitat In upland central Mexico Vickianthus alamanii mainly occurs in secondary vegetation derived from forests of oak and pine, tropical forests with deciduous leaves, and mesophytic mountain forests at elevations of .
As a pollinator-friendly plant Along the banks of Mexico's Lake Pátzcuaro where beekeeping is economically important, Vickianthus alamanii is considered significant for maintaining the bee populations.
Taxonomy
In 1836 Augustin Pyramus de Candolle formally named and described Vickianthus alamanii under the name Vernonia alamanii, remarking that he had only a fragment to work with, but that it was very distinctive. The fragment had been sent to him by "Alaman." This was certainly Lucas Alamán, known to have sent to de candolle many collections mostly encountered in Alamán's native state of Guanajuato.
In 2023 when the genus Vickianthus was erected by Harold E. Robinson, Vickianthus alamanii was chosen as the type species for the genus.
Etymology The genus name Vickianthus honors botanist Vicki Funk.
The species name alamanii honors Lucas Alamán, who sent Augustin Pyramus de Candolle a fragment of the plant, from which the taxon first was formally described, as Vernonia alamanii.
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