Lacistema robustum Schnizl.
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Authority
Sleumer, Hermann O. 1980. Flacourtiaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 22: 1-499. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Lacistemataceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type. Lhotzky anno 1831, Brazil, Bahia, fl fr (holotype, B, lost; isotype, G-DC).
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Synonyms
Lacistema recurvum Schnizl., Lacistema blanchetii A.DC., Lacistema intermedium Schnizl.
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Description
Species Description - Shrub or treelet. Branchlets dark red-brown and glabrous even at tips, here and there provided with linear-oblong gray lenticels, older parts grayish-yellowish-corticate. Leaves elliptic or oblong-elliptic, apex rather abruptly acuminate for 1.5-2.0 cm, tip bluntish, base cuneate to the petiole or more or less rounded, firmly chartaceous to subcoriaceous, glabrous on both faces or with scattered very fine and short hairs beneath, dark red-brown and somewhat shining above, paler and dull beneath in dry specimens, dentate-undulate to entire, edge markedly revolute in dry specimens, 10.0-18.0 cm long, (3.0-)4.0-6.5 cm broad, lateral nerves 5-6 pairs, the lowest pair excurrent close to the margin, veins transverse, a little raised on both faces, veinlets laxly reticulate, rather obscure; petiole stoutish, 8.0-12.0(-16.0) mm long; stipules subulate, glabrous, ca 9.0 mm long, caducous. Spikes (3-)6-8(-12) per axil, rather compact, reddish, (4.0-)6.0-10.0(-15.0) mm long; rhachis laxly hairy or subglabrous; flower-subtending bract triangular-ovate, obtuse. Sepals 4(-6), linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, entire, as long as the bract. Disk cup-shaped, low, shallowly 4-5-lobed. Ovary hairy at least in its upper part; style distinct, with 3 short suberect stigmas. Fruit obovoid-trigonous, substipitate, obtuse, brown-red, laxly pubescent or glabrescent, 6.0-10.0 mm long.
Distribution and Ecology - Brazil (Pernambuco, Bahia, Espirito Santo); in lowland forest.
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Discussion
Note. To guess from the short description of L. oblongum Sprengel, it is possible that this species was based on the same collection of which a duplicate was described as L. recurvum by Schnizlein. Sprengel does not mention a collector or locality of L. oblongum; his description must have been based on a specimen of one of the few very early collectors in Brazil, supposedly by Sello in Bahia (or in Espirito Santo) in 1816. On the label of the Salzmann collections from Bahia occurs the name L. oblongum, but this collection dates only from 1827-1830; it is this Salzmann collection (the specimen in M) to which A. de Candolle refers when putting L. oblongum Sprengel into the synonymy of L. myricoides Swartz, i e L. aggregatum (Berg.) Rusby where it does not belong. Schnizlein omitted Sprengel’s name in his revision of the genus in Martius Fl. Bras. 1857. By that time the type of Sprengel’s L. oblongum must have been in Sprengel’s private herbarium in Halle and hardly accessible to Schnizlein; Sprengel’s herbarium went to Berlin in 1890, and the type of L. oblongum was lost there March 1st, 1943.
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Distribution
Brazil South America| Pernambuco Brazil South America| Bahia Brazil South America| Espirito Santo Brazil South America|