Albizia niopoides

Title

Albizia niopoides

Author(s)

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Albizia niopoides (Spruce ex Benth.) Burkart

Description

10. Albizia niopoides (Bentham) Burkart, Las Legum. Argent., ed. 2, 542. 1952. Pithecolobium niopoides Spruce ex Bentham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London 30: 591. 1875 & in Martius, Fl. Bras. 15(2): 447. 1876. -Typus infra sub var. niopoide indicatur.

Amply microphyllidious trees flowering when 4-7 m tall but in favorable conditions attaining a stature of 25-40 m and trunk 3.5-12(-l5) dm dbh, the bark pallid smooth, peeling in flakes, the foliage bicolored, the narrow crowded lfts olivaceous and somewhat lustrous above, paler dull beneath, the young stems, ventral face of all lf-axes, and all axes of inflorescence either thinly or densely villosulous with fine, erect and incurved, pallid or yellowish hairs to 0.1-0.3 mm (but in var. colombiana the indumentum reduced to a rudiment along the ventral rib of pinnae), the lfts mostly glabrous on both faces (rarely puberulent ventrally near base) and minutely ciliolate, the inflorescence composed mostly or entirely of efoliate pseudoracemes of small globose capitula either all axillary to and shorter than the suffulcrant lf or less often partly or wholly terminal and paniculate (but not surpassing the foliage), rarely a few peduncles axillary to fully developed lvs. Stipules linear-subulate 0.7-2.5 mm, very early dry fugacious, absent from many flowering and from all fruiting specimens. Lf-formula ix—xix (seldom over xii)/28-57(-63); lf-stk of major lvs (4.5-)6-16(-21) cm, the petiole together with firm livid pulvinus (1.5-)2-4.5 cm, the longer interpinnal segments 8-24 cm; a round or elliptic, cupular thick-rimmed nectary near midpetiole, either sessile or obconic, in profile 0.2-0.5(-0.6) mm tall and in vertical view 0.6-1.5(-l.8) mm diam, a similar but smaller nectary sometimes between 1-2 furthest pinna-pairs and a yet smaller one occasional at tip of pinna-rachises; pinnae decrescent proximally, either the furthest or the antepenultimate pair longest, the rachis of longer ones 5-11.5 cm, the longer inter-foliolar segments 0.6-2.5 mm; lft-pulvinules 0.2-0.4 x 0.3-0.55 mm; lfts decrescent at base and sometimes also at extreme apex of pinna-rachis, otherwise subequilong, the first pair commonly reduced to subulate paraphyllidia, the blades linear or linear-lanceolate from bluntly auriculate base, obtuse or deltately subacute at apex, commonly arched forward and low-convex ventrally, the larger ones 5-13 x 0.9-2.5 mm; primary venation palmate, the asymmetric midrib submarginal at base of lft but becoming subcentric at its apex, at middle dividing blade 1:2-5, either simple or 1-2-branched on proximal side, the inner posterior primary nerve ascending, close to the almost plane margin, to or beyond midblade, the 1-2 outer posterior primaries short or obscure, the whole venation immersed or weakly elevated on upper face, prominulous beneath. Primary axis of pseudoracemes (or of panicle-branches) 1.5—6(— 10) cm; peduncles fasciculate by 2-3, 4-14 (or random axillary capitula to 25) mm; capitula without filaments 5-8 mm diam; bracts spatulate, <1 mm, persistent; fls sessile or cuneately contracted into a very short pedicel, homomorphic or nearly so, the terminal fl sometimes a trifle longer than the peripheral ones but its androecium not modified except for slightly longer filament-tube, the perianth greenish white, the calyx most commonly puberulent overall, or sometimes glabrescent externally but ciliolate, or sometimes quite glabrous, the tube 0.9-1.5(-l .7) mm; corolla (2.7-)3-4.5 mm, the often unequal ovate lobes 0.4-1.2 mm, glabrous except for often thinly puberulent lobes or wholly glabrous; androecium 20-34(-40)-merous, (5.5-)6.5-9 mm long, the stemonozone not over 0.6 mm, sometimes obscure, the tube (1.8-)2.4-4.2 mm, usually no longer than the corolla, rarely up to 0.6 mm longer; ovary glabrous, attenuate into style, this up to 1 mm longer than the longest stamens, the stigma poriform. Pods solitary or rarely 2-3 per capitulum, sessile but abruptly contracted at base into a pseudostipe 2-8 mm, in profile broad-linear 8.5-16.5 x 1.4-2.6 cm, straight or nearly so, commonly apiculate, when well fertilized 9-13-seeded, the body piano-compressed, framed by slightly elevated sutures produced as a sharp-edged wing to (0.8-) 1-2.3 mm wide, the glabrous valves at first either green, or brown with fuscous transverse bands between the seeds, or nigrescent and pruinose, when ripe stiffly papery, scarcely elevated over the seed-cavities, indistinctly venulose, satiny within; dehiscence inert, through both sutures; funicles linear, contorted at apex; seeds horizontal at middle of pod, obliquely attached to funicle, strongly compressed, in broad profile 5.5-7.6 x 4-5 mm, the smooth translucent testa scarcely 0.1 mm thick, the pleurogram delicately incised, inversely U-shaped; cotyledons thinly foliaceous, concealing the radicle.