Gleasonia prancei B.M.Boom

Description

Description: Tree to 10 m tall, 30 cm diam, the branchlets quadrangular, ribbed, covered with sparse, mostly appressed, tan-colored setae ca 1 mm long; dark red, resinous exudate from stem. Stipular lobes 4 per node, inserted with one edge above a petiole and the other interpetiolar, 13-28 x 8-14 mm, ovate to elliptical with mucronate apex, united basally for 8-17 mm, glabrous except for a patch of pannose, tan-colored hairs around the apex adaxially and scattered setae around the entire margin, provided adaxially at the base with colleters. Leaves 15-22.5 x 9-13.5 cm; lamina coriaceous, elliptic to obovate, apex mucronulate, obcordate, retuse, or rounded, base acuminate, somewhat oblique, usually with revolute margins, with 9-11 pairs of lateral nerves, adaxially glabrous, the costae sunken, abaxially glabrous except for major veins, these prominent and bearing densely hispid hairs ca 1 mm long, tertiary and higher order veins prominulous; petiole 12-25 mm long, sparsely setose. Inflorescence 10-22 x 13-22 cm, branched at base or with peduncle to one half the length of inflorescence; secondary axes alternate or opposite; all axes and pedicels densely hirsute, the hairs spreading, 1.5-2 mm long, tan-colored. Flowers: hypanthium obconic, densely hirsute; calyx lobes 5, pinkish-white, oblanceolate, 52-75 x 9-17 mm, adaxially glabrescent, abaxially appressed-strigulose along mid-vein, margin ciliate with hairs to 3 mm long; corolla pink, the tube ca 20 mm long, glabrous inside, setose outside, the lobes 5, ca 15 mm long, cucullate at apex, setose inside and outside; stamens 5, the anthers fusiform, 6-7 mm long, the filaments ca 4 mm long, inserted at top of tube; ovary 2-celled; style ciliolate, ca 21 mm long, terete, the stigma 2-lobed, the lobes decurrent, 8-9 mm long. Fruit unknown.

Distribution: Endemic to Serra Araca.

Eponymy: This species is named for Dr. Ghillean T. Prance who organized and led the trip on which the type material was collected and who suggested (Prance, 1984) that this spectacular tree might be undescribed.

Discussion: Gleasonia prancei is most closely related, phylogenetically and ecologically, to G. duidana Standley, a species common on summits and upper slopes of the sandstone tepuis of southern Venezuela. It is easily distinguished from that species by its adaxially glabrous, 4-lobed stipules with mucronate apices (vs. pubescent, 2-lobed, rounded apices).

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