Calliandra Species Pages

Calliandra trinervia var. arborea

Rupert C. Barneby

68g.  Calliandra trinervia Bentham var. arborea (Standley) Barneby, comb. nov. C. arborea Standley in Yuncker, Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Bot. Ser. 17(4): 365, pl. XII (phototypus). 1938. — "HONDURAS ... near El Rincón, about 10 miles west of Siguatepeque, Dept. Comayagua ... July 24, 1936, T. G. Yuncker, R. F. Dawson & H. E. Youse 6047" — Holotypus, F!; isotypi, K!, NY!; paratypi, Yuncker & al. 5912, F!, NY!.

Anneslia centralis Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 52. 1928. — "Type from near San Pedro, Sula [San Pedro Sula], Honduras, April, 1889, C. Thieme 5214." — Holotypus, NY!. — Calliandra centralis Standley, J. Arnold Arb. 11: 30. 1930. — Equated with C. emarginata by Standley & Steyermark, 1946: 22.

A. rekoi Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 53. 1928. — "[MEXICO.] Tepinapa, Oaxaca, altitude 100 meters, March 23, 1919. B. P. Reko 4130." — Holotypus, US!; clastotypus + photo, NY!. — Calliandra rekoi Standley, Publ. Field Columbian Mus., Bot. Ser. 4(8): 308. 1929.

A. splendens Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 53. 1928. — "[MEXICO.] Road between Tumlata [= Tumbal ] and El Salto [de Agua], Chiapas [±17°25'N, 92°20'W], 1895, E. W. Nelson 3396." — Holotypus, US!; clastotypus (lvs, fls), NY!. — Calliandra splendens Standley, Publ. Field Columbian Mus., Bot. Ser. 4(8): 308. 1929.

Calliandra rivalis Lundell, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 64: 549. 1937. — "... C. L. Lundell 6610, collected in the rocky bed of Rio Frio at San Agustin, Mountain Pine Ridge, El Cayo District, British Honduras, July 26, 1936." — Holotypus, MICH!; isotypus, NY!. — Mistakenly equated by Standley & Steyermark 1946: 22, with C. emarginata.

Arborescent shrubs, flowering at 1.5-3 m but attaining 3-9 m with trunk to 1.5 m dbh, glabrous except for micro-puberulent lf-axes and often thinly granular- papillate inflorescence, the capitula arising singly or 2(-3) together from few-stipulate, mostly efoliate brachyblasts axillary to coeval or new-fallen lvs. Stipules 0.8-3 x 0.4-0.9 mm. Lf-formula exactly i/2; petioles (5-)14-40 mm; pinna-rachises (10-)12-30 mm; lft-pulvinules (1—)1.5—3.4 mm; lft-blades inequilaterally lance-elliptic-acuminate or subdimidiately ovate- acuminate from inequilaterally cuneate or shallowly semicordate base, the distal pair (4.5-)6.5-11 x 1.4-5 cm, 2.1-3 times as long as wide. Peduncles 14—36 mm; capitula 12—22-fld; bracts 0.3-0.7, rarely 2-3 mm; PERIPHERAL FLS: calyx 1.2-3.4 x 0.9-1.6 mm, weakly 5-10-nerved; corolla either greenish- white or reddish, often punctate, 6.4—7.5(—13) mm; androecium 10-18(-24)-merous, 19-33 mm, the tube commonly 4.5-7.5 mm, included or shortly exserted, exceptionally attaining 15.5 mm, long-exserted. Pods in profile 8.5-18 x 1.1-1.7 cm, the valves glabrous, either almost smooth or obliquely, weakly or (in Costa Rica) sharply venulose; seed-testa brown, often speckled, pleurogrammic.

In moist lowland forest, wooded ravines, and ascending to premontane and montane forest, 100-1650 m, discontinuously widespread in s. Mexico (Guerrero to n. Oaxaca and adj. Veracruz, Chiapas) and Central America (Guatemala, s. Belize, Honduras, centr. Costa Rica). — Map 32. — Fl. V-VIII. — Quita (Costa Rica).

As defined here, var. arborea is morphologically intermediate between C. trinervia var. trinervia, of which it has the general aspect and the relatively large, more or less acuminate leaflets, and C. tergemina var. emarginata, which it resembles in pleurogrammic seed-coat. Without fruit it can be reliably distinguished from var. trinervia only by its distantly disjunct dispersal in the Northern Hemisphere (see maps 31, 32).

The segregates reduced above to synonymy of var. arborea each have some slight peculiarity: Anneslia splendens an anomalously long androecial tube; A. rekoi relatively short leaflet-pulvinules; and A. centralis the pulvinules of the last with (apparently) dark red tassel. The last-mentioned has been equated in the literature with C. emarginata, and could be a variant of it with acuminate leaflets.

References: [Article] Barneby, Rupert C. 1998. Silk tree, guanacaste, monkey's earring: A generic system for the synandrous Mimosaceae of the Americas. Part III. Calliandra. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 74: 1-223.