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Common name: 

Latin name and synonyms: Prepusa von Martius (1826-27)

Etymology: The genus Prepusa might be named after either the Greek verb prepein meaning distinct or remarkable (in a positive sense), or the Greek verb prepo (to be different, used in Botanical Latin as preptus).

Species:  5 species

Distribution: southeastern Brazil. 

Habitat:  mountains

Characteristics:   Herbs, shrubs, or small trees. Leaves very thick and leathery, not stalked, and in a basal rosette in the herbs, or crowded at the branch apices in the trees or shrubs.  Flower 6-merous showy with large, inflated, campanulate and thin-walled calyx, often with wings. Corolla nearly hidden inside calyx, white or yellow, salver- to funnelshaped. Pollen in tetrads. Style long, stigma bilamellate. Capsule hidden inside the dried calyx.

Evolution and related plants:   Prepusa has not yet been sequenced and included in any phylogenetic analysis so this genus is placed in the Helieae tribe based on morphological similarities.  It has 6-merous flowers and pollen similar to the enigmatic genus Senaea, which is also preliminarily placed in  Helieae.

Economic uses:  None recorded.

Notes: Prepusa species have very narrow distributions and are threatened.

Accepted species (synonyms in parenthesis) and its distribution:

References and publications: 

Struwe, L., J. W. Kadereit, J. Klackenberg, S. Nilsson, M. Thiv, K. B. von Hagen, & V. A. Albert. 2002. Systematics, character evolution, and biogeography of Gentianaceae, including a new tribal and subtribal classification. Pp. 21-309. In: L. Struwe & V. A. Albert (eds.), Gentianaceae: Systematics and Natural History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

©  Lena Struwe, 2003-2011