Myrcia magnoliifolia DC.

  • Authority

    Maguire, Bassett. 1969. The botany of the Guayana Highland-part VIII. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 18: 1-290.

  • Family

    Myrtaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Myrcia magnoliifolia DC.

  • Description

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    Species Description - This is a well-marked taxon of eastern Brazil and the Guianas, much resembling Myrcia fallax but larger in almost every respect, and more densely pubescent. The leaves are 4-8 cm wide, 12-20 cm long; the panicles mostly 8-15 cm long; the buds 3-3.5(-4) mm long. The inflorescence and the lower leaf-surface are both markedly and persistently silky-pubescent with somewhat appressed yellowish hairs up to 0.5-1 mm long; the calyx-lobes are appressed-pubescent on the inner surface; the larger lobes are broad and low, 2-2.5 mm wide, and the style is 6-6.5 mm long.

  • Discussion

    Myrcia magnoliaefolia 8 parvifolia Berg, Mart. Fl. Bras. 14(1): 162. 1857.

    ?Myrcia phaeoclada a guyanensis Berg, Mart. Fl. Bras. 14(1): 167. 1857.

    The type, which I studied at M in 1966, includes two sheets annotated by de Candolle, both marked "Rio Negro"; one sheet, represented by Field Mus. neg. 19819, may be taken as lectotype. The leaves are rather closely long-strigose beneath, and the calyx-lobes pubescent on the inner surface. The type of M . magnoliaefolia 8 parvifolia, collected near Para by Sieber, is no. 10350 of the Willdenow Herbarium (B). This specimen, which I was permitted to study in 1966, is exactly like the other Brazilian specimens that are cited below.

    Berg recognized in Myrcia phaeoclada two coordinate infraspecific taxa, a guyanensis, based on Schomburgk 1030 ("in hb. Berol."), and /3 alagoensis, based on Gardner 1295 ("in hb. Vindob."). The Schomburgk specimen at Berlin has presumably been destroyed, but a sheet of no. 1030 at Kew, from Bentham's herbarium, may be designated as lectotype of a guyanensis. The Kew specimen has the calyxlobes essentially glabrous without, as described by Berg, but appressed-pubescent within, as in M . magnoliifolia. The leaves are larger than usual in M . fallax, but they are essentially glabrous (as described by Berg for M . phaeoclada), thus differing in this respect from M . magnoliifolia.

    The plant described above as Myrcia dichasialis is superficially like M . magnoliifolia in that both of them seem to represent large-flowered members of the M . fallax complex. They are separated in the key by the more obvious features of pubescence, but M . dichasialis differs from M . magnoliifolia also in having prevailingly smaller and lanceolate (not elliptic-oblong) leaves, smaller and few-flowered panicles with many of the flowers pedicellate and racemose, and the calyx-lobes nearly erect (not spreading or reflexed) in anthesis.

    Except for the type, from the "Rio Negro," I have seen only the following from the interior of South America. In the size and shape of the leaves, which are however rather sparingly strigose beneath, and in having the large calyx-lobes copiously pubescent within, the specimen agrees well with those from farther east. VENEZUELA. Amazonas: Capihuara, alto Casiquiare, elev 120 m, 29 May 1942 (fr), Williams 15686 (F).