Mimosa debilis var. aequatoriana

Title

Mimosa debilis var. aequatoriana

Author(s)

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Mimosa debilis var. aequatoriana (Rudd) Barneby

Description

326b. Mimosa debilis Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow var. aequatoriana (Rudd) Barneby, comb. nov. M. albida var. aequatoriana Rudd, Phytologia 16: 440. 1968.—"[US] 1021791, collected in the vicinity of Guayaquil, Ecuador, August 11,1918, by J. N. Rose and George Rose (no. 22111)"—Holotypus, US!; isotypi, GH! NY!

M. albida var. aequatoriana sensu Rudd in Wiggins & Porter, Fl. Galapagos Is. 653, fig. 178. 1971.

Scrambling shrubs 6-25 dm, randomly armed, hispid and villosulous, the lfts puberulent on both faces, strigose only beneath; leaf-stalks 2-7 cm; lfts of distal pairs obliquely ovate or elliptic, abruptly acute or acuminulate 3-6(-6.5) x 1.3-3 cm, 2.2-2.9 times as long as wide, broadest near or a little below mid-blade, the small proximal anterior lft of each pinna 3-9 mm; pods sessile, narrowly oblong 8-15 x 3-5 mm, densely puberulent and hispid overall, the setae of replum to 0.6-1 mm, those of valves 1-3 mm.

In thickets and waste places below 200 m, locally plentiful in Pacific lowland Ecuador (provs. Esmeraldas, Guayas and El Oro), and once recorded from Isla S. Cristóbal in the Galapagos archipelago.—Fl. III-IX. Map 53.

As mentioned in discussion of M. albida, the locally well characterized var. aequatoriana presents the foliage of that species combined with the pod of M. debilis. It illustrates and emphasizes the over-close relationship between these species, which are here maintained in the interest of convenience. Mutually exclusive definition of the pair is impossible unless var. aequatoriana is transferred to M. debilis, even though this taxonomic ruse may well not reflect its probable origin from vicariant M. albida.