Gomidesia

  • Authority

    Maguire, Bassett. 1969. The botany of the Guayana Highland-part VIII. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 18: 1-290.

  • Family

    Myrtaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Gomidesia O.Berg

  • Discussion

    One species, Gomidesia bonnettiasylvestris Steyermark, has been described from the Guayana Highland area. It is treated and briefly described above under Myrcia sect Myrcia. The genus Gomidesia is a group of about 40 or more species, mostly natives of the south-Brazihan region. Legrand has recently published a synopsis of practically the entire genus (Las especies tropicales del genero Gomidesia. Com. Bot. Mus. Hist. Nat. Montevideo 3(37): 1-30. 1959 ["31 Dec 1958"]). The diagnostic character of Gomidesia is wholly in the anthers; whereas in Mvrcia the anthers are bilocular, longitudinally dehiscent and explanate, in Gomidesia they are incompletely (or in one species wholly) 4-locular; the interior sac of each theca is somewhat displaced distad, and seems to open extrorsely at the tip, and the exterior sac seems to open introrsely at the base. The differentiation in the anthers may be barely perceptible (i.e., in species otherwise referable to Myrcia), or it may be considerable. In the most extreme situation the anthers have four apical pores (the genus Cerquieria). Bentham summarily reduced Gomidesia and Cerquicria to Mvrcia, on the ground that the differences were "so difflcult to appreciate, and so little in accordance with habit." Legrand's work indicates, however, that Gomidesia occupies a natural range, mostly in southern Brazil with a few species ranging as far north as Bahia and one only to the West Indies. Although the anther-character is the only thoroughly consistent one distinguishing the genus from Myrcia, most of the species are recognizable by the tawny or reddish-brown silky, somewhat appressed pubescence that covers the inflorescence and the flowers.