Cassia camporum

  • Title

    Cassia camporum

  • Author(s)

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Cassia camporum Benth.

  • Description

    157.  Cassia camporum Bentham in J. Bot. (Hooker) 2: 79. 1840. — "Communicated by the Imperial Petersburgh Academy." — Holotypus, collected by Ludwig Riedel X.1826 on Rio Pardo, e. slope of Serra de Maracaju, s. Matto Grosso, LE (4 sheets but apparently only one gathering, variably numbered 66, 77, 144, 584, = NY Neg. 8824 (the first three seen by Bentham)! isotypi (nos. 66, 77, 144), K and (no. 584), US!

    Cassia hispidula var. oblongifolia Chodat & Hassler in Bull. Herb. Boiss. II, 4: 825. 1904. — ". .in altoplanitie pr. flumen Corrientes [Paraguay], Dec., [E. Hassler] n. 5842." — Holotypus, G! isotypi, BM, F, K, NY, P, S, UC!

    Viscid undershrubs (2.5-)3-6.5(-10) dm, with few stiffly erect or rarely incurved-ascending wiry, commonly castaneous, simple or usually from well below middle paniculately branching stems arising from an ultimately woody rootstock, villosulous and hispidulous throughout or nearly so with mixed fine hairs and yellowish setules up to 0.3-1.3(-1.6) mm, the slightly bicolored, always setulose-ciliolate lfts sometimes glabrous on one or both faces, the erect spici- form racemes terminal to the main stem and all major lateral branchlets, at least finally exserted.

    Stipules erect, firm, subulate, (0.5-)0.7-2(-2.5) mm, persistent.

    Lvs ascending and spreading (1-) 1.5-4(-4.5) cm, petioled; pulvinus scarcely swollen, sometimes discolored, up to 1 mm; petiole (5-)6-20 mm, less than once to over twice as long as the lower lfts, at middle narrowly winged and grooved, 0.3-0.45 mm diam; rachis 2.5-10 mm; lfts 2 pairs, displayed as other Absoideae on scarcely swollen pulvinule 0.4-1 mm, the distal pair a trifle larger, in outline elliptic to oblong-elliptic and subacute to oblong or oblong-obovate and obtuse to emarginate, minutely mucronulate, 3-17 x 2-8 (-10) mm, at base asymmetrically cuneate or rounded, the margin entire plane or almost so, the blades firmly membranous, above dull olivaceous, thinly villosulous or glabrous, beneath a little paler, either villosulous or setulose or both, exceptionally almost or quite glabrous, the venation above all immersed, the midrib alone prominulous beneath, the 2-3 pairs of secondaries sometimes faintly perceptible.

    Racemes 10-70-fld, commonly sessile or almost so, when sessile the first 1-4 fls not uncommonly leafy-bracteate, the axis becoming 4-6(-20) cm, the 2-5 simultaneously expanded flowers displayed well below the racemose unopened buds; bracts subulate or triangular-acuminate, 1.5-3.5 mm, persistent; pedicels ascending 1.5-7.5 (some lowest leafy-bracted fls up to 10) mm, bracteolate usually below middle, 1.5-4.5 mm below calyx; bracteoles like bracts but smaller, persistent; buds ovoid, bluntly sometimes obscurely apiculate, thinly setulose and sometimes also villosulous; sepals submembranous, yellowish or red-tinged, lanceolate or lance-elliptic, mostly obtuse, (6.5-)7-9.5 x 2-3.2 mm; petals yellow, at full anthesis companulately ascending, of nearly equal length, the four plane ones (12-)12.5-15 x 6-11 mm, obovate-cuneate or spatulate-oblanceolate, two sometimes narrower than the others, the fifth dimidiately ovate, coiled; ovary densely setulose; ovules 5-8.

    Pod oblong, often a little decurved, 3-5 x 0.6-0.95 cm, the valves purplish or castaneous, thinly villosulous and hispid with yellow setae up to (0.6-)1-3 mm; seeds not seen ripe. — Collections: 17.

    Campo and cerrado, 400-800 m, apparently uncommon, w. margins of the Brazilian Planalto in Mato Grosso from Serra do Roncador s. through Serras Caiapo and Maracaju to Serra de Amamba there just entering Paraguay; and apparently isolated in centr. Sao Paulo (Itiripipina; Botucatu), and on the upper forks of Rio Paracatu in w.-centr. Minas Gerais (Joao Pinheiro and vicinity). — Fl. VIII-III.

    A close relative of C. viscosa, but notably different in the spiciform racemes of short- pedicelled flowers, several of which expand simultaneously, and the racemose arrangement of the unopened flower-buds. It occurs in parts of the ranges of C viscosa var. major and var. paraguayensis, and differs further from the first by its never obcordate, less glutinous leaflets and from the latter in the much smaller leaves.

    Bentham described C. camporum from Riedel's specimens loaned to him from St. Petersburg about 1840. When writing up the genus for Flora Brasiliensis and his monograph thirty years later, not having retained a duplicate for comparison in his own herbarium he mistakenly identified C. camporum with the Mexican C. pauciflora, sometimes similar in outline and size of leaflets but entirely distinct in habit and in the long-pedicellate flowers.