Trichilia stenophylla Urb. & Ekman

  • Authority

    Pennington, Terence D. 1981. Meliaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 28: 1-359, 418-449, 459-470. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Meliaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Trichilia stenophylla Urb. & Ekman

  • Type

    Type. Ekman 4497, Haiti, between Mole St. Nicolas and La Bombarde, st (holotype, S; isotypes, A, F, G, GH, K, NY, US).

  • Description

    Species Description - Young branches appressed puberulous soon glabrous, becoming greyish-white, finely fissured, without lenticels, straight. Bud scales absent. Leaves closely placed on straight branches and often in small clusters borne on very short lateral shoots; trifoliolate or digitate, petiole 1.5-2 mm long, semiterete, puberulous. Leaflets sessile, 3-5, linear-lanceolate tapering to a sharp spine 1-2 mm long, base acute to rounded, coriaceous, 1.4-1.5 cm long, 0.2-0.25 cm broad, glabrous, not glandular-punctate or -striate; venation craspedodromous with a prominent marginal vein, midrib flat; secondaries 12-13 on either side of midrib, obscure, shallowly ascending, straight and parallel; intersecondaries and tertiaries absent. Flowers unisexual (?plants dioecious), borne at apex of a few-flowered inflorescence ca. 5 mm long; pedicel ca. 0.5 mm long. Calyx short cyathiform, ca. 0.75 mm long with 5 shallow broadly ovate lobes ca. 1/3 length of calyx, appressed puberulous. Petals 5, free or fused just above base, valvate, ca. 2.5 mm long, ca. 1 mm broad, lanceolate, apex acute, hooded, appressed puberulous with dibrachiate or medifixed hairs outside, glabrous inside. Staminal tube cyathiform, ca. 2.5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad; filaments completely fused, margin with 7-8 short acute appendages alternating with anthers and ca. 1/3 their length, glabrous outside, sparsely hairy inside; anthers not seen; antherodes 7-8, ca. 0.6 mm long, slender, not dehiscent, without pollen, glabrous. Nectary absent. Ovary ovoid, 3-locular, loculi with 2 collateral ovules, strigose; style stout, glabrous; style-head capitate equalling base of anthers. Fruit unknown.

  • Discussion

    Relationships These are discussed under T. aquifolia.

    Field Characters: A shrub 1-2 m high, with slender straight branches bearing rather closely set spiny leaves. The yellowish flowers are produced in February.

  • Distribution

    This species is known only from two collections from the northwest tip of Haiti, where it occurs on limestone rocks.

    Haiti South America|