Cojoba catenata
Rupert C. Barneby
1. Cojoba catenata (Donnell Smith) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 32. 1928. Pithecolobium catenatum Donnell Smith, Bot. Gaz. (Crawfordsville) 48: 294. 1909. — "In silvis profundis ad praedium Suerre vocatum, Llanuras de Santa Clara, Comarca de Limón, Costa Rica, alt 300 m, Febr 1896 John Donnell Smith n. 6479 ex Pl. Guat. etc. quas ed. Donn. Sm." — Holotypus, US 942475!; isotypi, NY!, US 942476!.
Cojoba valerioi Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 32. 1928. —"Quebrada Serena, southeast of Tilarán in the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, January 27, 1926, Standley & Valerio 46247!' — Holotypus, NY!.
Cojoba standleyi Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 32. 1928. —"Costa Rica. Type from La Tejona, January 25, 1926 Paul C. Standley 45859." — Holotypus, US 1254358!; isotypus (fragm.), NY!. — Pithecellobium standleyi (Britton & Rose) Standley, Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Bot. Ser. 18: 509. 1937.
Pithecellobium catenatum sensu Zamora, 1991: 130.
Amply foliate shrubs and understory trees to 15 m tall and 30 cm dbh, the bark on branchlets and young twigs greenish with white-pustular lenticels, the young buds red-brown or golden-red velvety with straight hairs to 0.3 mm long, as well as puberulent with short, blond, incurved hairs, the long red-brown hairs eventually deciduous, the blond incurved ones persistent on young stems, lf-axes, and peduncles, and sometimes on the major veins of both surfaces of the lfts, the lvs bicolored, the lfts olivaceous sublustrous on upper surface, brighter, lighter green on lower, the pendent peduncles of white or green-white flowers arising one or two axillary to coeval leaves, or described as ramiflorous, the fruit apparently developing and persistent well past abscision of subtending lf. Stipules deltate to triangular, 0.6-1.25 mm, glabrate on dorsal side though partly red-puberulent, or glabrous, when glabrous (the type) one-nerved and hyline-margined, fugacious, some stipules covering growing buds 2-2.5 mm long and homy. Lf-formula i/(l—) 1.5—6, the terete petiole (0.4-)l-6 cm, continuing past pinna-pair as a thickened, coarse, dorsiventrally flattened appendage to 4 mm, this withering with age, the petiole proper charged or not between pinna-pair with a short-stalked to sessile, cupular or crateriform thick-rimmed nectary 0.5-1 mm diam, similar but smaller nectaries between lft-pairs; pinna-rachis 2.2-8 cm, the interfoliolar segments 1.8-3 cm; lft-pulvinules 0.75-3.5 mm, the long axis more or less perpendicular to the rachis, the whole more or less smooth or coarsely wrinkled, golden-puberulent; lfts distally accrescent, the longer terminal or penultimate pair ovate, obovate or asymmetrically obelliptic from an inequilateral semicordate or broadly attenuate base, 8-13 x 2-6 cm, the apex rounded to acuminate; venation pinnate-palmate (rarely in larger leaves obscurely pinnate), the centric midrib nearly straight or more commonly faintly falcate, the 4—8 widely ascending secondary nerves brochidodrome shortly within the plane margin, the whole venation immersed discolored on upper surface, prominulous on lower. Peduncles 1.4-18 cm, charged or not midway to near the base of the capitulum with a coarse, incurved, thickened bract; bracts proximally spatulate or obtrullate, distally becoming linear-spatulate, or all linear-lanceolate, 0.75-2.25 mm, shorter or longer than the flower buds, not at all to much thickened near broadest part but not sharply incurved, deciduous or persistent into fruiting; capitula 30-54-flowered, the flowers radiating in all directions from a globose or ellipsoid receptacle ±2-4 mm diam; perianth 4-5-merous, the corolla at least very thin-textured and when dry fragile, glabrous externally save for the red-brown-puberulent calyx-lobes and golden-brown- puberulent corolla-lobes; calyx deeply narrowly campanulate 2.25-4 mm, the erect-incurved, equal or unequal deltate lobes 0.1-0.5 mm; corolla narrowly funnelform-campanulate, gently dilated distally, 9.5-20 mm, the erect or gently reflexed, lanceolate or lance-ovate, unequal lobes 0.75-2.5 mm; androecium 19-35 mm, 19-54-merous, the tube 5-20 mm, included in corolla, thickened at base but lacking nectarial disc, the stemonozone 1-2 mm; ovary elliptic glabrous sessile or on a stipe to 0.75 mm long, the style barely but obviously surpassing the stamens, the stigma poriform. Pods 1 or 2 per capitulum, subsessile from an abruptly contracted base, in profile undulately linear-submoniliform to moniliform, with age gently twisted, ±5-11-seeded, 18 cm long and 1 cm broad over seed cavities, the sutural ribs thickened and 1-2 mm broad, the valves red when fresh, when dry dark seal-brown and minutely golden-brown- puberulent, coarsely but sparingly wrinkled, internally tan, lustrous, the incipient dehiscence through the ventral or both sutures, apparently starting at the middle of the pod; seeds ellipsoid 14-15 x 5.5-7 mm, shiny dark-brown to black, coarsely wrinkled, persistent for at least a short time on a short, strap-shaped, easily broken funicle.
In wet forest, sometimes riparian; widespread in Costa Rica, in the NW on the W slopes of the cordilleras in prov. Guanacaste, E and S on the Caribbean slopes to N Panama, and on the Penisula de Osa, prov. Puntarenas; isolated in dept. Izabal, Guatemala, and dept. Colón, Honduras. Elev. from near sea level to 1350 m. — Map 13. — Fl. XI-VII, possibly throughout the year; the dried fruit long persistent on the tree.
Cojoba catenata is variable in size and number of both vegetative and floral organs, and it is with some hesitation that C. valerioi is reduced to synonymy, for it is smaller in all respects. However, the differences in size are not absolute, and any differences used to separate the two would really be contrived. Furthermore, removing C. valerioi from catenata would not leave the latter much less variable nor better defined. It may be that arduous field study will lead to a better understanding of the taxon and to some credible differences between segregate species. These differences have not been found through study of herbarium material.
References: [Article] Barneby, Rupert C. & Grimes, James W. 1997. Silk tree, guanacaste, monkey's earring: A generic system for the synandrous Mimosaceae of the Americas. Part II.