Senna multijuga subsp. lindleyana var. peregrinatrix

  • Authors

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Authority

    Irwin, Howard S. & Barneby, Rupert C. 1982. The American Cassiinae. A synoptical revision of Leguminosae tribe Cassieae subtrib Cassiinae in the New World. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 35, part 2: 455-918.

  • Discussion

    161/IIb. Senna multijuga (L. C. Richard) subsp, lindleyana (Gardner) var. peregrinatrix Irwin & Barneby, var. nov., a var. lindleyana foliolis simul brevioribus et angustioribus (majoribus 9-15 x 2-4 mm) a subsp, multijuga var. verrucosa, cum qua olim confudit Bentham., imprimis stipulis setiformi-linearibus basi haud dilatatis foliolisque minus numerosis (foliorum majorum saepissime 15-32, nec 33-53-jugis) diversa.— BRAZIL. Parana: Banhado, mun. Piraquara, 31.1.1971 (fl, fr jun), G. Hatschbach 26189.—Holotypus, NY: isotypi, NY, MBM.

    Cassia verrucosa sensu Bentham, 1870, p. 124, p.p. quoad pi. hilariana; non Vogel.

    Trees (3-)4-10 m, the hornotinous branchlets, lf-stalks and axes of inflorescence ± densely puberulent-tomentellous with incurved hairs up to 0.1-0.25 mm or with these mixed with spreading-ascending longer hairs to 0.3-0.5 mm, the pubescence sordid or lutescent, the axes of inflorescence in addition (together with some lf-stalks) nearly always ± densely charged with erect setules to 0.2-0.5 mm, the lfts either glabrous on both faces and ciliolate or commonly pilosulous beneath or overall.

    Stipules setaceous or very narrowly linear-attenuate (3.5-)5-13 x 0.2-0.4 mm.

    Lvs below the panicle 6-13 cm; gland between proximal pair of lfts 2-5 x 0.25-0.6 mm; pulvinules 0.5-1 mm; lfts 15-32 (of some lvs low on annotinous branchlets as few as 14-9) pairs, inserted at points 2-5 mm apart along rachis, in outline lance-oblong or narrowly oblong up to 9-15 x 2-4 mm, 3-5 times as long as wide, a faint venation of ±5-8 pairs of camptodrome secondary veins commonly prominulous above, sometimes delicately so beneath, the tertiary venulation fully immersed on both faces, sometimes discolored beneath.

    Long inner sepals 5-7.5 mm; petals glabrous or exceptionally puberulent dorsally along veins, the long abaxial ones up to (14-) 16-21 mm; androecium and ovary glabrous, or the latter remotely pilosulous.—Collections: 20.

    Moist forest and slopes of morros along the Atlantic and high interior slopes of the coast ranges of s.-e. Brazil, from near sea-level up to ±900 m, certainly native below the Tropic line between s.-e. Sao Paulo and n.-e. Santa Catarina; one record from the Organ Mountains in Rio de Janeiro (Novo Friburgo); distantly allopatric and presumably naturalized in savanna woodland at ±250-300 m on the lower Paragua and adjoining Caroni rivers in Bolivar, e.-centr. Venezuela, and on the Caribbean lowlands of n.-w. Bolivar (Turbaco; Palmito) in Colombia.—Fl. in Brazil X-II, in Venezuela and Colombia VIII-X.

    In southeastern Brazil var. peregrinatrix is somewhat precariously distinguished from var. lindleyana only by the shorter, narrower and more crowded leaflets, in this respect standing in relation to var. lindleyana as does var. verrucosa to var. multijuga. The cases are different, however, in that the native range of var. peregrinatrix appears to lie entirely within (though is far from coextensive with) that of its close relative. The majority of specimens differ further from var. lindleyana in the setulose pubescence of the panicle, never encountered in lindleyana and lacking from var. peregrinatrix only at the extremities of its range in Rio de Janeiro (Novo Friburgo) and Santa Catarina (Moro de Cambirella). In its Venezuelan and Colombian stations, where var. peregrinatrix has passed as a form of S. mutisiana lacking lustrous hispid setae, its inflorescence is setulose as always in Parana and Sao Paulo. Curiously the Venezuelan stations lie within the relatively restricted range of setulose var. multijuga, different not only in the broad distant leaflets but also in the dilated stipules. In absence of the fruit and in ignorance of the habitat we cannot be absolutely certain that the Venezuelan and Colombian plants, which appear certainly conspecific in a narrow sense, are genuine var. peregrinatrix and do not represent an independently derived, autochthonous form of S. multijuga linking southeast Brazilian subsp. lindleyana with Mexican subsp, doylei, all being similar in their small leaflets and setiform stipules. The bicentric occurrence on the lower Caroni in Venezuela and on the densely populated and long inhabited coastal plain of northwestern Colombia is suggestive of random dispersal from a southern focus, and it is this hypothesis which suggested the epithet.