Calliandra coriacea

  • Title

    Calliandra coriacea

  • Author(s)

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Calliandra coriacea (Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.) Benth.

  • Description

    72.  Calliandra coriacea (Willdenow) Bentham, London J. Bot. 3: 95 (with query, the plant itself unknown). 1844. Inga coriacea Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow, Sp. Pl. 4(2): 1010. 1806. — "Habitat in America meridionali." — Holotypus, Humboldt s.n. in B-WILLD 19017, seen in Microform!. — Mistakenly equated by Bentham, 1875: 539, with Calliandra emarginata.

    C. glyphoxylon var. glaberrima Bentham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London 30: 539. 1875. — "[Colombia.] Valley of the Magdalena, Triana." — Holotypus, Triana s.n. from "Vallée du Magdalena, province de Mariquita [= n. depto. Tolima]," K (hb. Hook.)! = NY Neg. 2002!; presumed isotypi, Triana 6837, collected at Espinal, prov. Mariquita, 500 m, Jan 1853, COL!, Triana s.n., G!. — Calliandra glaberrima Britton & Killip, Ann. New York, Acad. Sci. 35: 134. 1936. C. rivalis Lundell, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 64: 549. 1937. — "C. L. Lundell 6610, collected in the rocky bed of Río Frio at San Agustin, Mountain Pine Ridge, El Cayo District, British Honduras, July 26, 1936." — Holotypus, MICH!; isotypus, NY!.

    C. anthoniae Grimes, Brittonia 45: 25, fig. 1. 1993. — "SURINAM, below Hendrik Creek, Coppenam River Headquarters, 30 Jul 1944 (fl fr), B. Maguire 25068." — Holotypus, NY!; isotypus, U!.

    Inga coriacea sensu Kunth in Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, 1842: 297, who had seen no specimen.

    Anneslia tergemina Kleinhoonte, 1940: 322; non Mimosa tergemina Linnaeus.

    Calliandra glaberrima sensu Woodson & Schery, 1950: 257.

    C. coriacea var. aquae-nigrae Barneby, in adnot., nom. nud.

    Macrophyllidious arborescent shrubs fertile when (1.5-)3-10(-12) m tall, with trunk attaining 1.5 dm dbh and terete gray virgate long-shoots, glabrous throughout except for sometimes minutely puberulent or barbellate peduncles and ventral face of lf-axes, the chartaceous lfts at maturity lustrous dove-gray or brown-olivaceous above, paler dull beneath, the capitula arising singly from lowest 1-3 elaminate nodes of brachyblasts axillary to hornotinous lvs, or occasionally also from random primary axils; phyllotaxy distichous. Stipules mostly ovate or depressed- deltate, rarely broad-lanceolate, 1-3.5 mm, weakly striate when young, becoming indurate and externally nerveless, persistent. Lf-formula i/1½, each pinna 3- foliolate, composed of a terminal pair of lfts and a smaller posterior one near base of pinna-rachis; lf-stk of primary lvs, including nigrescent cross-wrinkled pulvinus, 6-39 mm, at middle 0.5-1.2 mm diam, the ventral groove shallow; rachis of pinnae 5-24 mm, either longer or shorter than petiole; lft-pulvinules (dry) either pallid or nigrescent, cross-wrinkled, in dorsal view (0.8—)1.1—1.8(—2) x 1-2.4 mm; lfts inequilaterally narrow- or broad-elliptic from antically cuneate, postically decurrent or incipiently semi-cordate base, mostly short-acuminate and at very apex obtuse apiculate (exceptionally shallowly emarginate, or attenuate and acute), the two distal lfts (2-)4—10 x 1—3.2(—3.5) cm, (1.8—)2.5—5 times as long as wide; primary venation of (3-)4(-5) nerves from pulvinule, the gently incurved, pinnately branched midrib forwardly displaced to divide blade ±1:1.5-2, the inner posterior nerve almost as strong, incurved-ascending well beyond mid-blade, the outer posterior one(s) much shorter, all these together with tertiary and reticular venules prominulous on both faces. Peduncles (6-)11-44 mm, almost always bracteate near or above middle; capitula 11—28-fld, the subglobose receptacle 1.5-2.5 mm diam; bracts mostly <1 mm, persistent; fls of each capitulum homomorphic as to perianth but the androecia sometimes dimorphic, that of some terminal fls a little longer and dilated into a trumpet; pedicels cryptic, <0.6 mm; perianth greenish-white, glabrous (micropuberulent), either 4- or 5-merous, the calyx finely striate, the corolla not so; calyx campanulate or deeply campanulate 1.4—3 (-3.3) x 1.1-2.8 mm, the teeth 0.1-0.35 mm; corolla 8-13 mm, the lobes 1.6-2.7 mm; androecium of peripheral fls 20-58-merous, 3-5 cm, the tube 1-3.5 cm, always at least shortly exserted, the stemonozone 0.6-1.4 mm, the tassel either pink or red-purple; intrastaminal nectary 0. Pods standing erect from plagiotropic branches, in broad view 9-13 x 0.8-1.3 cm, glabrous overall, the dark-castaneous sutural ribs in dorsal view 3.5-4 mm wide, the plane recessed lignescent valves faintly or weakly cross-venulose; seeds (few seen) broad-elliptic-oblong in broad view, ±7.5-11.5 x 5.5-8 mm, the testa pale brown, papery, loosely enveloping the embryo, becoming fragile and sometimes narrowly winged around the periphery; pleurogram 0.

    On rocky river banks and gravelly shores, sometimes forming riparian thickets of great extent, 20-1100 m, of discontinuous range between 1° and 18°N in Central America and n. South America: scattered between centr. Panama (prov. Code Colon, and Panama) and extra-Amazonian Colombia (prov. Chocó to middle Magdalena Valley); on blackwater streams at 100-230 m on the headwaters of the Orinoco in Venezuela (Amazonas); in interior Guianas (headwaters of Essequibo in Guyana, on the Nickerie Lucie, upper Coppename, Gran, Tapanahoni and Gonini rivers in Surinam) and adj. Pará, Brazil (middle and lower rios Trombetas and Parú do Oeste); and remotely disjunct in Belize (Cayo). — Map 34. — Fl. in Belize, Panama and w. Colombia II-V, VII-IX, in Venezuela XII-IV, VII, in the Guianas and Pará V-IX, XI, the full cycle not documented.

    The comprehensive concept of C. coriacea expressed in the foregoing synonymy and description has been built up by accretion of geographic elements that were mistaken at first for closely related but distinct taxa. The historic nucleus of C. coriacea, based on a unicate specimen collected at an unrecorded locality, very likely in Colombia, by Humboldt, was unknown to Bentham, who redescribed it as a var. glaberrima of the upland Ecuadorean C. glyphoxylon, obviously different in copious loose pubescence, larger stipules, shorter leaf-stalks, 8 (not 6)-foliolate leaves, capitula of not less than thirty flowers, and few (16-18) stamens per flower. The typical, Colombian C. coriacea has all flowers of the capitulum homomorphic or almost so, with slenderly tubular androecium 19-35 mm long. In southwest Venezuela the otherwise similar riparian calliandra has at least incipiently heteromorphic flowers, with slightly shorter corolla mostly 8-10 (not 10-13) mm long and androecial tubes mostly 10-17 mm long. In preliminary studies these plants were segregated as a var. aquae-nigrae Barneby, a manuscript name that has no nomenclatural status. The plants of the Guianas and adjoining Brazil were described as C. anthoniae in order to correct their previous misidentification, by Anthonia Kleinhoonte, as C. tergemina (Linnaeus) Bentham, and to provide a name, no longer needed, for an account of Calliandra for Flora of the Guianas, then in preparation. As monographic studies progressed, nothing of substance could be found to distinguish C. anthoniae from Colombian C. coriacea or, for that matter, from the localized Belizean populations described by Lundell as C. rivalis.

    Calliandra coriacea differs ideally from superficially similar C. trinervia (sens. lat.) in nearly elliptic leaflets with subequally convex anterior and posterior margins, in fruits stiffly ascending from the branches like those of C. angustifolia, and in smaller seeds. In Venezuela, however, the leaflets are sometimes a little wider on the anterior side of the costa, and the attitude of the fruits needs confirmation in the field. The species as a whole is more easily separable from related C. angustifolia by its 3(not 4)-foliolate pinnae and by much larger distal leaflets. Differential characters of the also related C. antioquiae are brought out in the protologue of that species, next following.