Taxon Profile:

	The Plant List
	International Plant Name Index
	Tropicos
	Catalogue of Life
	Global Biodiversity Information Facility
	JSTOR Types
	JSTOR
	BHL
	Encyclopedia of Life
	WikiSpecies
	Google Scholar
	PubMed
	Morphbank
	IUCN
	National Center for Biotechnology Information
	Barcode of Life

Additional Resources:

Family:

Lecythidaceae (Magnoliophyta)

Primary Citation:

Fl. Bras. (Martius) 14(1): 615. 1859

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Description:

Author: Scott A. Mori & Nathan P. Smith

Type: French Guiana. Cayenne, no date (fl), J. Martin s.n. (lectotype, P, photo NY, designated Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 21(II). 1990; isolectotypes, K, P, photo P at NY).

Description: Trees, to 35 m tall, the trunk unbuttressed. Bark with shallow vertical fissures, the outer bark ca. 5 mm thick, the inner bark much thicker, bright yellow. Stems slender, 1.5–2.5 mm diam., below uppermost leaf, glabrous, green when fresh, often black when dry, inconspicuously angled. Leaves deciduous, flushed just before flowers appear; petioles 5–13 mm long, glabrous, canaliculate; blades narrowly elliptic to elliptic or infrequently oblong, 13-26 x 5-10 cm, chartaceous at anthesis, becoming more coriaceous with maturity, glabrous, the abaxial surface glaucous, usually with rugose papillae (as seen with SEM), the base obtuse, narrowly decurrent onto petiole, the margins crenulate, with scars left by caducous trichomes, the apex acuminate; venation brochidodromous to weakly eucamptodromous (at least when leaves young), the midrib prominent adaxially, salient abaxially, the secondary veins in 19-26 pairs, often prominulous adaxially and prominent to prominulous abaxially, the tertiary veins inconspicuous, reticulate. Inflorescences terminal or in axils of uppermost leaves, racemose, unbranched, the rachis 12–30 cm long, glabrous, with conspicuous horizontally elongated lenticels, with 2-7 widely spaced flowers, the lower ½ without flowers; pedicel/hypanthium sessile below articulation, 4–10 mm long above articulation, the bract and bracteoles not known. Flowers when leaves present, ca. 11 cm diam.; hypanthium tapered, sometimes sulcate, glabrous, green, longitudinally oriented mucilage-bearing ducts present; calyx-lobes 6, very widely ovate to ovate, 10-14 x 6-11 mm, slightly imbricate (at least in bud), glabrous, green, the margins erose; petals 6, very widely ovate, 40 x 35 mm, white, greenish white, or green, the margins coiled under at anthesis; androecium zygomorphic, staminal lip not scored, the staminal ring with ca. 1000 densely packed stamens, the filaments 3.5-4 mm long, unidimensional, white, the anthers ca. 1 mm long, yellow, the hood flat, ca. 3.5-5 x 1.5-2.5 cm, outer surface texture smooth, white, with numerous staminodes and vestigial stamens, the staminodes proximal, with dark yellow anthers, swept inward, the vestigial stamens distal, white, anterior hood extension present, inconspicuous; ovary (3-)4(-5)-locular, the ovary summit truncate, the ovules 14–28 per locule, inserted on basal septum, oblique, the style long, tapering towards apex, oblique, length not known, stylar collar absent. Fruits dehiscent, globose to depressed globose, 3.5-8 (excluding operculum) x 5.5-10.5 cm, the calyx-lobes persistent, woody, sometimes reflexed, the infracalycine zone 1-2 cm long, rounded or tapered to pedicel, the calycine ring inserted near or below middle, the supracalycine zone 1.5–2.5 cm long, erect to flared outwards, the pericarp 4–6 mm thick, smooth to slightly rough, brown Seeds 4–6 per fruit, 2.5-3 x 1.5–2.5 cm, the testa less than 1 mm thick, brown, the veins usually impressed; aril basal, barely covering base of seed.

Common names: Brazil: jarana, jarana amarela, matamatá róseo. French Guiana: mahot, mahot jaune, meli (paramaka language). Surinam: gele bast tétéhoedoe.

Distribution: Distributed in Surinam, French Guiana, and the Brazilian Amazon from the vicinity of Manaus eastward to near the mouth of the Amazon.

Ecology: Lecythis poiteaui is a canopy tree of non-flooded forest.

Phenology: Lecythis poiteaui flowers from Oct to Mar and releases seed from Apr to Jun. It most commonly flowers from the end of the dry season into the rainy season. Four trees of L. poiteaui, observed for a total of 20 tree years (between 1963 and 1971) by the Surinam Forest Service in their Kamp 8 Arboretum, tended to bloom at the end of the long dry season (Oct-Nov), continued through the short wet season (Dec-Jan), and terminated halfway into the short dry season (Feb). No trees bloomed during the long wet season. Individual trees bloomed from one to four months in a given year.

Pollination: Lecythis poiteaui is bat-pollinated and possesses many characteristics of that syndrome (Mori et aI., 1978). The following observations on the pollination of this species are taken from Mori et al. (1978). The inflorescences of L. poiteaui are simple racemes produced at the branch ends. They are located mostly on the upper periphery of the crown and therefore project above it. Each inflorescence produces a single flower on a given night which is oriented with the anterior side facing upwards. The hood is not appressed to the staminal ring, so there is no mechanical restriction on the kinds of animals which can enter the flower. Unlike those of most other New World Lecythidaceae, the petals of L. poiteaui are green, reflexed, inrolled at the margins and are apparently without function in pollinator attraction. The androecium is white except for the yellow stamens of the staminal ring and hood and is larger than most other species of Lecythis. The number of staminal ring stamens is enormous (ca 1000) in contrast to that of other species of the genus (150-500). The flowers emit a musty-fruity odor and produce nectar at anthesis. They open simultaneously at dusk and begin to fall around 3:00 a.m. At Camp Inselberg in the Nouragues Nature Park, French Guiana a total of 637, 483, and 439 flowers fell during the nights of Nov 21, 22, and 24, respectively. Hundreds of bats visited the flowers on the second and third nights of observation, causing the tree to literally shake with activity. Peak visitation occurred between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. Individual flower visits were of short duration (ca 1 second) and a given flower was often visited several times consecutively. No anther damage was observed in the fallen flowers, suggesting that bats visit the flowers for nectar. Nearly all of the fallen flowers had claw marks on the outside of the ligule and hood. An opossum (probably Marmosa sp.), visited the flowers between 7:30 and 9:00 p.m. of the first and last nights of observation. The opossum grasped the hood with its front paws and stuck his head into the flower, apparently to drink nectar. These observations have been confirmed on trees found around Camp Inselberg in the Nouragues Nature Park, French Guiana. An exception is that the number of bats visiting the trees never seemed to reach such high numbers as was observed in Surinam. Feinstein et al. (2008) report that several sulfur-containing compounds contribute to the characteristic aroma of the flowers.

Dispersal: Marc van Roosmalen (pers. comm.) informs me that the fleshy aril is so eagerly sought by monkeys that mature fruits with seeds are difficult to find. This observation suggests that monkeys may play a role in seed dispersal. However, the possibility that bats may disperse the seeds needs to be investigated because these animals eagerly remove the seeds of species of the sapucaia group of Lecythis to eat the aril (see species page for L. pisonis).

Predation: The larvae of xylophagous beetles in the family Cerambycidae feed on the wood of fallen branches and tree trunks of L. poiteaui. Because the wood is dead, this activity exerts no apparent selective pressure on the species, and therefore the beetles are not predators in the normal meaning of the word (Lee et al., 2014).

Field characters: Lecythis poiteaui is easily recognized in the field by its combination of cylindrical trunk; shallowly fissured bark with bright yellow slash; whitish abaxial leaf blade surface; and noturnal flowers with green petals. The common names for this species often allude to yellow inner bark. This species is deciduous. The new leaves are flushed slightly before the tree flowers, and, therefore, the leaves of flowering collections are chartaceous whereas those of fruiting collections are more coriaceous.

Taxonomic notes: There are two other species of Neotropical Lecythidaceae, Lecythis barnebyi and L. brancoensis, known to be pollinated by bats. The three bat-pollinated species are easy to separate from one another by the features provided on their species pages.

Conservation: IUCN Red List: Not on list.

Uses: None recorded.

Etymology: The epithet of this species honors Alexandre Poiteau who was the first to provide a scientific description, including outstanding illustrations, of Lecythidaceae (Poiteau, 1825).

Source: This species page is based on Mori in Mori & Prance (1990), a recent study (2012) of specimens at NY, and field study of new collections made in 2012.

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to B. Keeley for allowing us to use the image of a bat pollinating this species.

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Lecythis poiteaui O.Berg: [Article] Prance, Ghillean T. & Mori, S. A. 1979. Lecythidaceae - Part I. The actinomorphic-flowered New World Lecythidaceae (Asteranthos, Gustavia, Grias, Allantoma & Cariniana). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 21: 1-270.
Lecythis poiteaui O.Berg: [Article] Mori, S. A. & Lepsch da Cunha, Nadia M. 1995. The Lecythidaceae of a central Amazonian moist forest. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 75: 1-55.