Abarema idiopoda (S.F.Blake) Barneby & J.W.Grimes

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Authority

Barneby, Rupert C. & Grimes, James W. 1996. Silk tree, guanacaste, monkey's earring: a generic system for the synandrous Mimosaceae of the Americas. Part I. Abarema, Albizia, and allies. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 74: 1-292.

Family

Mimosaceae

Scientific Name

Abarema idiopoda (S.F.Blake) Barneby & J.W.Grimes

Type

"BRITISH HONDURAS: . . . near Manatee Lagoon [Belize distr.], 12 May 1906, M. E. Peck 437 ..." — Holotypus, GH (not found in 1989); clastotypus (+ photo) NY!; isotypus, NY!

Description

Species Description - Microphyllidious trees attaining 20 m with trunk to 2-8 dm dbh but flowering when smaller, the young stems, lf-axes and peduncles densely pilosulous with spreading-incurved or incumbent, pallid or commonly golden-brown hairs to 0.1-0.3 mm, the foliage bicolored, the lfts above dark green (brown when dry), sublustrous and glabrous except for sometimes microciliolate midrib, pale and either glabrous or remotely strigulose beneath, minutely ciliolate or not, the umbelliform capitula of white-stamened fls axillary to distal lvs, immersed in foliage. Stipules (few seen) narrowly lanceolate 2-3 mm, convex dorsally, caducous from small white scar. Lf-formula v-xiv (-xix)/18—40; lf-stk of major lvs 7-16 cm, the petiole including the enlarged pulvinus (1—)1.5—3.5(—4.3) cm, at middle 0.9-1.4 mm diam, the longer interpinnal segments 0.9-2 cm; petiolar-nectaries variable in position, size, and number, cupular on a broad pediment, the first situated at midpetiole, or close to first pinna-pair, or somewhere between these points, 0.8-2.4 mm diam, similar but smaller nectaries often inserted below some or all pinna-pairs (but sometimes wanting), and yet smaller ones on pinna-rachises at 1-6 furthest pairs of lfts; pinnae accrescent distally, often much so, the rachis of those at and beyond mid-lf 6-11 cm, the longer interfoliolar segments 2.5-5 mm; paraphyllidia immediately next to pinna-pulvini minute, caducous; pulvinules 0.5-0.7 x 0.4-0.6 mm; lfts decrescent at base of pinnae, thence subequilong, in outline narrowly oblong from inequilaterally cuneate or flabellate, rarely shallowly semicordate base, broadly obtuse, either straight or obscurely falcate, the larger ones 9-13 x 2.5-3.5 (or at antically dilated base sometimes -5) mm; the subcentric, straight or obscurely sigmoid midrib giving rise on its anterior side (or on both sides) to 5-8 weak, usually simple secondary veins faintly brochidodrome within the minutely thickened but not revolute margin, tertiary veinlets 0 or obscure, the whole venation immersed or almost so on upper face, finely prominulous beneath. Peduncles (3-)3.5-9.5 cm, lignescent in fruit and long persistent; capitula 25-55-fld, the axis including terminal pedestal (not always developed) 2.5-4.5 mm; bracts minute caducous; pedicels spreading and ascending 0.2-0.3 mm diam, the lowest (3)4-8.5 mm, the rest progressively shorter upward, that of the 1 (—3), weakly dimorphic fls ±0.5-1.5 mm; perianth of all fls 5-merous (random exceptions), greenish white, thinly puberulent externally, the calyx-tube sometimes glabrate; PERIPHERAL FLS: calyx obconic-turbinate (1.5-) 1.7-3 x 1.5-2.1 mm, the depressed-deltate teeth 0.1-0.6 mm; corolla 5-7.2 mm, the lobes 2-3 x 1.1-1.5 mm; androecium 24—36-merous, 20-24 mm, the stemonozone <1 mm or nearly obsolete, the tube 2-2.4 mm; ovary densely pubescent, obliquely truncate at apex, contracted at base into a short glabrate stipe; TERMINAL FL: calyx 2.2-3 x 1.6-2 mm; corolla 6-7.5 mm; stamen-tube 6-8.5 mm, as long as or shortly exserted from corolla. Pods l(-2) per capitulum, sessile or shortly pseudo-stipitate, in profile undulately linear, curved through ±1-1.5 circles, ±7-10 x 1-1.4 cm, 8-12-seeded, the stiffly leathery, minutely puberulent, weakly venulose fuscous-brown valves framed by sutures 1.8-2.5 mm wide, at maturity low-convex over each seed, within dark reddish brown in seed-cavities, tan between; dehiscence through both sutures, the valves elastically recurving and coiling; seeds not seen, described by one collector (Croat 15291, MO) as bluish.

Distribution and Ecology - In rain forest, in mixed pine-broadleaf woodland, and in semideciduous forest, reported once from mangrove swamp, near sea level and to 1200 m, scattered on the Gulf and Caribbean slopes of S Mexico and Central America: E Oaxaca and N Chiapas E through N Guatemala and Belize to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua and central Panama, in Guatemala S to Suchitepéquez and in W Panama crossing the Cordillera to the Pacific slope in Veraguas. — Map 9. — Fl. III-V, X-XI.

Discussion

Our description of A. idiopoda is based on 26 collections, but none of these has well-formed or well-preserved seeds. In the Central American flora, A. idiopoda is the only multifoliolate and microphyll abarema (leaflets of longer pinnae 18 pairs upward and none at midblade more than 3.5 mm wide) with truncate ovary and may be distinguished at anthesis from the similar but rarer A. oxyphyllidia by this feature combined with obtuse leaflets.

Pithecolobium idiopodum was overlooked by Britton & Rose in North American Flora. Jupunba pseudota-marindus and Pithecolobium halogenes were simply inadvertent duplications, not compared at the time of publication with any previously known species.

Distribution

Oaxaca Mexico North America| Chiapas Mexico North America| Guatemala Central America| Belize Central America| Nicaragua Central America| Panama Central America|