Cassia lamprosperma Mart. ex Benth.
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Authors
Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby
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Authority
Irwin, Howard S. & Barneby, Rupert C. 1978. Monographic studies in Cassia (Leguminosae, Caesalpinioideae). III. Sections Absus and Grimaldia. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 30: 1-300.
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Family
Caesalpiniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Holotypus, 2 sheets, M! = F Neg. 6242 = NY Neg. 8887. - Bentham, 1871, p. 564.
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Description
Species Description - Diffusely many-stemmed undershrubs forming matlike thickets to ± 5 dm tall and 2 m diam, glutinous throughout, the lustrous brown, freely branching stems and petioles hispid with divaricate tapering stramineous or reddish setae to 3-4.5 mm, otherwise glabrous except for minutely ciliolate wing-margins of the lf-stalk, the foliage lustrous, the lfts concolorous, crenulate and hispid-ciliate, the short, densely racemose inflorescences glabrous except for sometimes ciliolate bracts, terminal to branches or becoming lf-opposed, not or hardly exserted. Stipules erect, firm, narrowly lance-acuminate, setiferous at apex, 3-5.5 mm, strongly 1-nerved, persistent. Lvs ascending 6.5-10.5 cm, petiolate; pulvinus scarcely inflated but discolored and wrinkled when dry, 2.5-3.5 mm; petiole 2-3.5 cm, 0.7-1.1 mm diam, like the rachis shallowly sulcate and narrowly wing-margined ventrally; rachis 2.5-6 cm; lfts 3-6 pairs, tilted forward from rachis and ± inclined face to face (often loosely forward-imbricate when pressed), slightly decrescent upward, in outline broadly asymmtrically oblong- or ovate-elliptic, obtuse but abruptly acuminulate-cuspidate by the excurrent midrib, 14-27(-30) x 7-14 mm, at base deeply cordate on proximal and shallowly so or cuneately rounded on ventral side, the blades thinly chartaceous, on both sides lustrously brown- olivaceous, the crenulate margin plane or almost so, armed in each notch with a forwardly directed seta, the straight eccentric midrib and ±3-6 pairs of secondary veins above immersed or faintly elevated, beneath sharply elevated and riblike, the tertiary venation faint or obscure. Inflorescences densely simply racemose, terminal to branchlets or by development of an axillary branchlet at same node becoming lf-opposed, including the short, sometimes thinly hispid peduncle 3.5-8 cm, the ±2-3 simultaneously expanded fls standing below the crowded but distinctly racemose buds; bracts firm, lanceolate or trianqular-lanceolate. 2.5-3.5 mm. persistent at least into fruit; pedicels very slender, ascending, 6-13 mm, bracteolate 1-4 mm below calyx; bracteoles resembling bracts but only 1.5-2.5 mm, persistent; buds ovoid-acuminate, glabrous; sepals submembranous, brown- or red-tinged, with petaloid margins, elliptic acute or acuminate, 9-11 x 3-4.2 mm; petals yellow, four at full anthesis ascending at ±45°, of unequal lengths and widths, the largest obovate- flabellate ±11-12x7 mm, the fifth narrower, coiled; ovary yellowish-setose, glutinous; ovules 5-6. Pod oblong, straight or almost so, ±3-4 x 0.8-0.9 cm, the reddish-brown valves glutinously lustrous and yellow-setose; seeds compressed-pyriform, 5-6.2 x 3.1-3.5 mm, the testa brown turning jet black, highly lustrous, transversely crackled, faintly lineolate. — Collections: 4.
Distribution and Ecology - Open places in cerrado, sometimes in white sand along streams, near 1000 m, known only from the crest of Sa. do Espinhaco immediately w. and s.-w. of Diamantina, centr. Minas Gerais. — Fl. I-IV.
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Discussion
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Distribution
Minas Gerais Brazil South America| Brazil South America|