''Malesherbia linearifolia'' (vernacular name Blue Star of Cordillera) is a subshrub native to the

Coquimbo Coquimbo is a port city, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo is situated in a valley south of La Serena, with which it forms Greater La Serena with more than ...

, Valparaiso, Metropolitana, and O'Higgins regions of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. It was the first member of ''

Malesherbia ''Malesherbia'' is a genus of flowering plants consisting of 25 species in the Passifloraceae. This is a xerophytic group endemic to the Peruvian and Chilean deserts and adjacent Argentina. The genus is currently recognized by the APG III system ...

'' to be described, with the original description dating to 1797 by Cavanilles. ''M. linearifolia'' is phenotypically very similar to sister species '' M. paniculata;'' both grow from a rhizome, have

cymose An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed on ...

inflorescences, and their flowers are range from light blue to deep purple. They differ in their leaves, ''M. paniculata'' has pinnate leaves while ''M. linearifolia'' has narrow leaves. They also differ in range. ''M. linearifolia'' is pollenated by '' Lasia aenea'', ''Centris chilensis,'' and ''Centris cineraria''.

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q12636102 Rosids of Chile linearifolia Taxa named by Jean Louis Marie Poiret Plants described in 1814