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Additional Resources:

Family:

Lecythidaceae (Magnoliophyta)

Primary Citation:

Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. 6: 9. 1820

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Description:

Author: Ghillean T. Prance & Scott A. Mori

Type: Brazil. Amazonas: Rio Negro, without date (fl), Ferreira s.n. (ex herb. Lusitan. comm. Geoffroy)(holotype, P).

Description: Trees, to 15 m tall, the young branches glabrous. Leaves with laminas coriaceous, oblong, 4-13 cm long, 2-4.5 cm broad, almost glabrous on both surfaces, lower surface with minute clustered hairs visible only at very high magnification, acuminate at apex, the acumen 4-15 mm long, cuneate at base; midrib more or less plane above or slightly raised near base, prominulous or prominent beneath; primary veins plane and rather inconspicuous on both surfaces; leaves subsessile or with very short petioles to 3 mm long. Stipules minute and caducous. Flowers borne solitarily on long axillary pedicels, the pedicels 12-18 mm long, glabrous; bracteoles 2, small, caducous, inserted at base of pedicels. Receptacle conical with a circular accrescent calyx, crenate margin, glabrous. Pseudo-corolla (outer row of staminodes) a single united radiate unit with 24-28 conspicuous veins from center to margin, the margins ciliate, colored yellow. Stamens numerous with thin free filaments to 7 mm long, arranged in several rows around the interior rim of the pseudo-corolla; anthers small. Style to 5 mm long, glabrous. Fruit to 2 cm long, the persistent calyx expanding and forming a circular rim around the fruit, smooth below rim, deeply costate above rim, the costae coming to a pointed apex. The single seed obconical-pyriform with swollen base and pointed apex filling the interior of the loculus, the other loculi abort and are not apparent in the mature fruit.

Common names: No common names are recorded for this species.

Distribution: Upper Rio Negro and Río Orinoco regions of Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil.

Ecology: Flooded forests on white sands beside black water rivers. This species is very common in some localities.

Phenology: In Brazil, flowers have been collected in May, Jul, Sep and Oct and seeds in Oct and Dec; in Colombia, flowers have been collected in April; in Venezuela, flowers have been collected in Oct and seeds in Mar.

Pollination: No observations recorded. The yellow flowers, however, suggest that this species may be pollinated by bees.

Dispersal: The fruits are dispersed by water. The woody, rim-like calyx of the fruits apparently makes them more bouyant.

Predation: No observations recorded.

Field characters: This species is recognized in the field by its limited distribution in black-water periodically flooded forests in the upper Rio Negro and upper Río Negro basins; slightly to more conspicuously fissured bark; leaf venation with all but the midrib very inconspicuous; solitary, axillary flowers; rim-like calyx with a dentate margin; corona and androecium bright yellow; consipicuously half-inferior ovary; and fruits that fall into the water and are carried away by currents. The bright yellow coronas and attached androecia make a striking contrast with the black water they fall into.

Taxonomic notes: Asteranthos brasiliensis has either been treated as a separate family (Knuth, 1939b), as part of the Napoleoneaceae (Prance & Mori, 1979: Tsou, 1994), or as part of the Scytopetalaceae (Appel, 1996, 2004). We accept the latter placement (Mori et al., 2017).

Uses: Non recorded.

Etymology: The species epithet refers to the country in which it was first discovered.

Source: Based on Prance in Prance in Mori (1979).

Acknowledgements: With thank Carol Gracie, J. Muller, and Dennis Stevenson for allowing us to use some of their images of this species.

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Asteranthos brasiliensis Desf.: [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.