is ant-fed myrmecophyte, apparently depending in part on nutrients and dead nestmates dropping into the tank from ants that live among the swollen, achlorophyllous leaf bases. The facultative epiphyte B. tatei – together with the tree-like B. micrantha (up to 26 feet (8 meters) in height) with its massive, gutter-like leaf axils that hold liters of rainwater – captures a great deal of falling vegetable debris. One terrestrial population of B. tatei was discovered with heterocystous cyanobacteria in its tanks, suggesting nitrogen fixation. The earliest divergent members of the genus – including Brocchinia prismatica in the Prismatica clade, and such species as B. melanacra and B. vestita in the Maguirei clade – lack tanks entirely and appear to depend solely on soil nutrients. Acquisition of the tank habit seems likely to have been the key innovation driving the evolution of specialized mechanisms of nutrient capture in Brocchinia, and is associated with thin leaf cross-sections and the later evolution of carnivory, ant-fed myrmecophily, epiphytism, and N fixation in the Acuminata and Reducta clades. Each of the nutritionally specialized species have relatively large areas of live trichomes on the leaf bases that can absorb amino acids at high rates. Tanks and absorptive trichomes were later lost secondarily in Brocchinia steyermarkii, a terrestrial species common in wet sandy areas in the Gran Sabana. Brocchinia melanacra is especially adapted to ground fires, with highly sclerotized leaf tips that protect that single bud in unexpanded leaves but appear to be useless (often dangling limply in the breeze) in fully expanded leaves. Brocchinia serrata, a highly aberrant taxon with tough, serrate leaves that is found only on a few mesetas in Colombia, has now been shown to be completely unrelated and has been described as the sole member of a new genus Sequencia, with its name reflecting its initial recognition based on DNA sequence data. The ecology of the dwarf species – Brocchinia cataractarum, B. delicatula, B. rupestris – remain enigmatic. Species , Plants of the World Online accepted the following species: Brocchinia acuminata L.B.Sm. Brocchinia amazonica L.B.Sm. Brocchinia cataractarum (Sandwith) B.Holst Brocchinia cowanii L.B.Sm. Brocchinia delicatula L.B.Sm. Brocchinia gilmartiniae G.S.Varad. Brocchinia hechtioides Mez Brocchinia hitchcockii L.B.Sm. Brocchinia maguirei L.B.Sm. Brocchinia melanacra L.B.Sm. Brocchinia micrantha (Baker) Mez Brocchinia paniculata Schult. & Schult.f. Brocchinia prismatica L.B.Sm. Brocchinia reducta Baker Brocchinia rupestris (Gleason) B.Holst Brocchinia steyermarkii L.B.Sm. Brocchinia tatei L.B.Sm. Brocchinia vestita L.B.Sm. Brocchinia wurdackiana B.Holst References External