Mouriri pusa Gardner
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Authority
Morley, Thomas. 1976. Melastomataceae tribe Memecyleae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 15: 1-295. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Melastomataceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type. G. Gardner 1608 (holotype, K; isotypes, BM, CGE, G, G-DC, GH, IAN-frag., L, NY, OXF, P, US, W). Brazil: Ceará: common on dry hilly wooded places near Crato. In flower, deflor, and young fruit, 1838. The holotype gives October as the month, the BM specimen gives November. The year 1839 appears on the US specimen, and the year 1840 on most of the others.
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Synonyms
Mouriri pusa var. grandifolia Hoehne
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Description
Description - Shrub or small tree to 9 m high, often gnarled and tortuous in appearance, the trunk to 20 cm in diam; plants glabrous except for the inflorescence; young twigs terete or narrowly 4-winged; bark of older trunk thick and somewhat corky ; wood soft. Petioles 1.0-3.0 mm long; blades thick, 3.3-8.0(-10.0) cm long, 1.7-3.2(-3.9) cm wide, oblong-elliptic to ovate-elliptic to elliptic or slightly obovate-elliptic, mostly rounded to emarginate at the apex or seldom acute, with a mucro, acute with an included angle of 60° to rounded or rarely cordate with a shallow notch at base; midrib plane or slightly elevated above, low-rounded to plane below or with 2 low angles or rarely with very narrow wings; lateral nerves invisible or nearly so above and below when dry. Midrib xylem tubular; stomatal crypts a modified Type III, averaging in a leaf ca 22-35 µ in diam, 46-68 µ high, 140-282 per sq mm (extremes 18-55 µ diam, 45-70 µ high, 140-350 per sq mm); upper epidermis varying from one to two cells thick in the same leaf, almost always with mucilaginous walls occasional to frequent in the inner of the doubled cells and sometimes in the single cells; hypodermis none; free stone cells present only in petiole; terminal sclereids columnar, often slanting and curving, branching at both ends, spreading out beneath the epidermises. Inflorescences mostly ramiflorous, at leafless nodes on twigs 1.5-22.0 mm thick or by report on the trunk as well, rarely in the lower leaf axils, 1-several per side, each 1-5-flowered, 1.0-9.0 mm long to base of farthest pedicel measured along the axes and with 1-3 internodes in that length; bracts 0.8-5.0 mm long, narrowly triangular to ovate-triangular, the apex slightly obtuse, the lower ones shortest, the bracts mostly deciduous by anthesis. Axes of the inflorescence, pedicels, upper parts of calyx lobes, and sometimes the lower parts of calyx lobes and ovary minutely puberulent, the lower calyx lobes and ovary sometimes with whitish exfoliating patches. Flowers fragrant. True pedicels 2.0-6.5 mm long; calyx including inferior ovary 5.5-8.0(-9.0) mm long, obconic to campanulate; free hypanthium 2.6-3.6 mm long; calyx lobes before anthesis 1.2-2.6 mm long, 2.2-3.7 mm wide, 2.5-3.8 mm long from the stamen attachment, triangular to rounded-triangular, the apex acute to rounded, the calyx splitting between the lobes 0.6-1.4 mm at anthesis. Petals mostly white, sometimes yellowish-white or rose, sometimes white with red spots or with a median purplish zone at base on the back, 9.0-12.0 mm long, 6.2-9.0 mm wide, broadly obovate to broadly elliptic or oblong-elliptic, acute or apiculate at the apex, sessile or short-clawed at base. Filaments white, the antesepalous ones 15.0-21.0 mm long, the ante-petalous ones 19.0-25.0 mm long; anthers yellow or yellowish-purple, 2.4-3.8 mm long; sporangia 2.4-3.6 mm long, dehiscing by elongate apical pores; gland 0.6-0.8 mm long, 1.5-2.5 mm from apex of anther when measured from center of gland; cauda 0.2-0.6 mm long Ovary 2-4-locular; ovules axile-basal, produced only outwardly from each placenta, 9-13 in all; style 22.0-28.0 mm long Fruit edible, red to black, globose, obliquely globose, or depressed-globose, crowned with the hypanthium and perhaps sometimes a few calyx lobes, ca 11-14 mm high and 11-15 mm thick when dry, estimated ca 14-18 mm high and 14-19 mm thick when fresh. Seeds 4 in the fruits examined, ca 8.8-10.5 mm long, 6.4 mm wide, 5.5 mm thick when not quite mature (no fully mature ones available), irregularly and broadly ellipsoid, flattened on the contact faces, with a demarcated slightly fuller part below, and with an oblique lateral-basal irregularly half-round hilum 3.2-3.6 mm long times 2.0-3.4 mm wide.
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Common Names
Púsa, pusa preta, mandapusa, jaboticaba, jaboticaba do cerrado
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Distribution
Central Brazil: Southern Pará and south and east-central Maranhão to south Ceará, Bahia, Minas Gerais north and east of Belo Horizonte, Goiás, and Mato Grosso as far south as the Cuiaba region. Open grasslands and savannas, often sandy, dry, or both. An element of the cerrado. Reported up to 800 m elevation in Goias.
Pará Brazil South America| Maranhão Brazil South America| Piauí Brazil South America| Ceará Brazil South America| Mato Grosso Brazil South America| Goiás Brazil South America| Minas Gerais Brazil South America|