Narratives – The Barneby Catalogue

Abarema glauca

33. Abarema glauca (Urban) Barneby & Grimes, comb. nov. Pithecolobium glaucum Urban, Symb. Ant. 7: 277. 1912. — "Hab. in Sto. Domingo austr. prope Barahona ad Bahoruco 50 m. alt., m April, flor.: Fuertes n. 183, prope Cabral 25 m alt., m. Mart, flor.: idem n. 857." — Syntypi, †B; lectotypus, no. 183, NY!; isotypi, G!, US!; paratypi, no. 857, A!, F!, K!, MO!, US!, U!. — Jupunba glauca (Urban) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 25. 1928.

Pithecolobium savannarum Britton, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 41: 4. 1914. — "Along a watercourse on barren savannas southeast of Holguin, Oriente [Cuba], April 7,1909 ([7. A.] Shafer 1194)." — Holotypus, NY!; isotypi F!, NY (2 sheets)!, US 792269!. — Jupunba savannarum (Britton) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 25. 1928. — Equated with P. glaucum by Liogier, Fl. Cuba Suppl. 72. 1969. Pithecolobium discolor Britton, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 41: 4. 1914. — "Type from Batabano [prov. La Habana, Cuba], April 10, 1903, ([J. A.] Shafer 161)', apparently the same species at Old Kerr’s Point, Abaco, Bahamas ([L. J. K.] Brace 2017)." — Holotypus, NY!; paratypi, NY!, US!. — Jupunba discolor (Britton) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 25. 1928. — Equated with P. glaucum by Liogier, Fl. Cuba Suppl. 72. 1969; and by Correll & Correll, Fl. Bahama Archipel. 678. 1982.

Pithecolobium glaucum sensu Urban, Ark. Bot. 24A(4): 2. 1932, descr. ampliat. ex Ekman 2698, 4222; Pithecellobium glaucum sensu Bisse, 1988: 224.

P. savannarum sensu Bisse, 1988: 224.

Trees potentially attaining 30 m in height and 9 dm dbh, most often seen only 4-9 m and occasionally flowering precociously as a shrublike sapling, the mature bark nearly smooth, exfoliating in large plates, the innovations densely bronze-puberulent or -furfuraceous, the lf-axes and inflorescence thinly inconspicuously strigulose-pilosulous with straight appressed or ascending-incurved hairs ±0.1-0.2 mm, the lvs almost always strongly bicolored, the thinly chartaceous lfts on upper face lustrously dark green, brown, purplish brown, or brown-mottled on pallid ground and uniformly glabrous, on lower face pallid, either glabrous or minutely remotely strigulose and often with a tuft of sordid hairs in the anterior basal angle of midrib, the short racemes of whitish fls arising singly or geminate from the axil of coeval lvs and immersed in foliage, the fruiting peduncles and dehisced fruit often long persisting below the new foliage. Stipules 0. Lf-formula (ii—)iii—vi(—vii)/(5—)6— 8(—10); lf-stks of vigorous young branches 6—15(—17) cm, of some on late branchlets condensed and only 1.5-5 cm, the petiole (0.6-)l-3.5(-4) cm, the longer interpinnal segments (0.5-)l-3(-3.7) cm; petiolar nectaries randomly variable in development, always sessile or some almost completely immersed, the first one, situated close below insertion of proximal pinna- pair, either mounded and small-pored or shallowly patelliform (then either round or vertically elliptic) and ±1.3-2.7 mm diam, or grossly verruciform, woody, wrinkled and (2-)3-6(-9) mm diam, exceptionally suppressed, smaller pored nectaries between furthest pairs of pinnae and lfts and sometimes between others; pinnae, when 2 pairs, distally accrescent, when 3 or more the proximal pair decrescent, the distal pairs thence subequilong; lft-pulvinules in dorsal view 0.8-1.4 x 0.5-0.9 mm; lfts only a little accrescent distally, in outline obliquely obovate or oblong-obovate from broad-cuneate base, on anterior side incipiently rhombic by dilation below midblade, at apex broadly rounded or emarginate, muticous, the penultimate pair 20-32 x (8—)9—19 mm, (1.4—) 1.5- 2.2(-2.5) times as long as wide; venation essentially pinnate (occasionally a short anterior primary nerve from pulvinule), the nearly centric and straight midrib giving rise on anterior side to ±5-8 (on posterior side to slightly fewer) major secondary nerves brochidodrome well within the plane or incipiently revolute margin and to random weaker intercalary ones, all these and erratic tertiary venules prominulous on both faces. Peduncles 3—8(—10) cm; racemes 20-65-fld, the axis becoming 5-22 mm, linear or linear-fusiform, the fls all homomorphic except for length of pedicel; bracts very quickly deciduous (none seen); pedicels widely ascending or the outermost horizontal, the proximal ones 2.5-7 mm, the distal progressively (but only slightly) shorter; perianth 5-merous, minutely puberulent externally, especially on lobes of corolla; calyx campanulate from either turbinate or rounded base, 2-4.5 x 1.6-2.4 mm, the usually unequal teeth broadly ovate to deltate, 0.5-1.2 mm; corolla (6.2-)6.5-9.5 mm, narrowly trumpet-shaped, the ovate lobes 1.8-3 x 1.1-1.8 mm; androecium 28-42-merous, 16-24.5 mm long, the stemonozone 1.2-2.3 mm, the tube 3.5-6.5 mm; ovary sessile, truncate at apex, silky-strigulose beyond glabrous base; style either longer or shorter than the longer stamens, the stigma scarcely dilated, 0.1-0.15 mm diam. Pods 1-2 per spike, subsessile, in profile undulately linear and (well fertilized) evenly coiled into one or two complete circles, (5.5-)8.5-12.5 cm x (6—)7—10(—11) mm, at interseminal isthmi (2-)3-8 mm wide, the leathery valves at first fuscous, piano- compressed, framed by thickened sutures, becoming low-convex over each seed and the exocarp becoming gray-tan and irregularly roughened-papillate, the crustaceous endocarp not over 0.2 mm thick in section, internally tan between seeds and dark chestnut brown in the cavities, these either round or vertically elliptic 7-10 x 5.5 -9 mm; dehiscence elastic, through both sutures; funicle ribbonlike, coiled at apex; seeds plumply pealike, a little compressed, in facial view subcircular and 4-4.5 mm diam, the translucent testa white when fresh, yellowing in age, closely investing the aniline-blue embryo, to 0.2 mm thick proximally but thinner distally where revealing a patch of blue from within, each face finely engraved with a closed pleurogram 2.5-3 x 1.8-2.5 mm.

In coastal thickets, coppice, and along streams in savanna, often on limestone, below 50 m, interruptedly widespread over Cuba from Pinar del Río E to W Oriente, N in the Bahamas to Andros and Great Abaco islands, and E locally into Hispaniola, in Haiti on the NW coast and île de la Tortue, in Dominican Republic on the NW coast (Pto Plata) and Barahona Peninsula. — Map 28. — Fl. I-VII, perhaps sporadically throughout the year.

The epithet discolor is very appropriate to A. glauca, for the leaflets, especially when dry, are notably bicolored, the glaucescent-purplish-gray upper face contrasting with the pale, fresh green hypophyllum. This characteristic foliage combined with umbelliform capitula make it one of the more easily recognized species of the genus. Contrary to what might be expected from the synonymy, A. glauca is not exceptionally variable; the features stressed by Britton & Rose (1928: 24) as diagnostic for Jupunba discolor and J. savannarum, that is the shape of the calyx and the outline or coloration of the seeds, are insignificant in the context of the larger sample of specimens now available.

References: [Article] Barneby, Rupert C. & Grimes, James W. 1996. Silk tree, guanacaste, monkey's earring: a generic system for the synandrous Mimosaceae of the Americas. Part I. Abarema, Albizia, and allies. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 74: 1-292.