Eugenia excelsa O.Berg
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Authority
Maguire, Bassett. 1969. The botany of the Guayana Highland-part VIII. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 18: 1-290.
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Family
Myrtaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
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Species Description - The following brief description is given as a supplement to that of Amshoff, cited above: The midvein is markedly convex, and sometimes wrinkled in dried leaves, on the upper surface; the flowers are in approximate pairs (usually 1-2 pairs) at the bracteate nodes of a very short abortive axillary axis; the bracts are scarious, obtuse, 2-4-ranked, 1-3 mm long, usually deciduous soon after anthesis; the bracteoles are linear, scarious, 1.3 mm long or less, appressed to the sides of the hypanthium, deciduous at anthesis; the calyx-lobes are thin, reflexed at anthesis, triangular, about 2 mm wide at base, 2-3 mm long; disk quadrate, 2.5 mm wide, the style 5-6 mm long, the stamens about 75; fruit subglobose, 6-8 mm in diameter; ovary bilocular, with 4-5 ovules in each locule.
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Discussion
For description see Amshoff (Fl. Suriname 3(2): 141. 1951). I accept Amshoff's identification, as I have not seen the type, which was collected by Sellow near Rio de Janeiro and seen by Berg in the Berlin herbarium. A specimen at G, received from Berlin in 1860, seems to agree with Berg's description, and is presumably authentic (cf Field Mus. neg. 23540). This species, and the very similar Eugenia cuspidata Berg (Mart. Fl. Bras. 14(1): 286. 1857), also based on a Berlin specimen collected by Sellow at Rio de Janeiro, were presumably referred to Eugenia rather than to Stenocalyx because the flowers are not "precocious" as Berg understood the term; in Eugenia {Stenocalyx) dentata the flowers and the young leaves develop at the same time, whereas in E. excelsa the flowers develop in the axils of mature coriaceous leaves. In other respects these two species, and also E. uniflora and E. ligustrina, are very much alike.