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:

Trans. Linn. Soc. London 30: 204. 1874

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Description:

Author: Scott A. Mori

Type: Colombia. Antioquia: Without locality, no date (fr only), Jervis s.n. (lectotype, K -- non-altered specimen, designated by Mori in Mori and Prance, 1990).

Description: Large trees, 30-45 m, often with small to large buttresses. Bark brown, with deep vertical fissures, the outer bark laminated. Sapwood cream-colored, the heartwood red. Leaves deciduous, turn bluish-green when crushed; petioles 5-10 mm long, glabrous to puberulous; blades narrowly to widely elliptic, 6-12(-17) x 2-5(-8) cm, chartaceous, glabrous, the base obtuse or rarely rounded, very narrowly decurrent onto pedicel, the margins crenate, often undulate, with 46-60 teeth on each side, the apex acuminate; venation brochidodromous, the secondary veins in 10-15 pairs. Inflorescences arising from branches below leaves or at end of lateral branch and thereby appearing terminal, racemes, unbranched but often with more than one raceme arising from same point, the rachises to 12 cm long, puberulous; pedicels very short, leaving knob 1 mm long after flower falls. Flowers when leaves absent or just after they have flushed, ca. 3 cm diam.; hypanthium finely sulcate, puberulous; calyx-lobes 6, narrowly to widely ovate, 5-7 x 3-5.5 mm, carinate abaxially, convex adaxially, the bases gibbous, scarcely imbricate; petals 6, widely elliptic, 15-18 x 10-12 mm, pink or pale purple, fading white; androecium zygomorphic, the staminal ring flat, with 127-170 (-225) stamens, the filaments 1-2 mm long, clavate, the anthers 0.5-0.6 mm long; ligule well-developed, differentiated into appendage-free area and hood, the hood 13-18 x 14-20 mm, pink, not coiled, with well developed appendages, the proximal ones bearing anthers (=staminodes), the distal ones without anthers (=vestigial stamens); fodder pollen in staminodes in proximal part of hood; ovary (3-)4-locular, with 4-10 ovules in each locule, the ovules inserted on lower part of septum, the summit of ovary truncate, the style 1-1.5 mm long, with conspicuous stylar collar. Fruits globose to oblong, usually longer than wide, (10)15-25 x 10-22 cm, the infracalycine zone rounded to base, the calycine ring appearing as a line without conspicuous calyx remnants, the supracalycine zone tapered at 45-60° angle from calycine ring to opercular opening, the pericarp 15-30 mm thick, smooth, reddish-brown, the opercular ring not muricate. Seeds fusiform, longitudinally 9-10 sulcate, to 9 x 3 cm; aril large, fleshy, basal.

Common names: Nicaragua: pan suba. Costa Rica: caoba, jícaro, olla de mono. Panama. coco salero. Colombia: coco de mono, olla de mono. English: monkey pot, monkey pot tree.

Distribution: Found in the Caribbean coastal forests of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama into the Darién of Panama and the Chocó of Colombia and from there into extreme northwestern coastal Ecuador.

Ecology: Lecythis ampla is a canopy to emergent tree found in primary lowland wet or moist forests from near sea level to 800 m alt. Trees sometimes persist in pastures.

Phenology: In the area around Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica this species flowers in Jul and Aug and drops seed from Mar to Jun. Flores (1994) notes that annual flowering occurs during the rainy season from May through July in Costa Rica and that it takes 10 months for seeds to mature resulting in seed dispersal from March to May. In Colombia, Flowers have been collected in Mar and Jun and seeds in Mar and in Ecuador seeds have been gathered in Mar. Because of the long time they take to rot, empty fruits can be found on the ground in different states of decomposition for most of the year, and, thus, their prescence without seeds has little to do with the phenology of the species.

Pollination: Lecythis ampla is reported to be pollinated by species of bees belonging to the genera Xylocopa sp. and Bombus sp. (Flores, 1994). The bees are most likely females visiting the flowers to collect fodder pollen as they do in the closely related Lecythis pisonis (Mori et al., 1980) but this needs to be confirmed.

Dispersal: The seeds of L. ampla are probably dispersed by bats that seek the fleshy aril for food as is the case for the closely related L. pisonis (Greenhall, 1965). Flores (1994) supports this by listing a number of bat species as well as parrots and parakeets that eat the arils.

Predation: Flores (1994) has observed that Geoffroy's spider monkey and mantled howler monkeys are fruit predators that are capable of opening the operculum to remove and prey upon the seeds. In addition, agouitis, pacas, collared pecaries, and Tome's spiny rats are predators and may also be ocassional dispersers (Flores, 1994).

Field characters: This species is recognized by the bluish-green color of bruised leaves, flowers, and fruits; large stature; fissured bark; small, deciduous leaves with crenate, undulate margins; purplish tinged flowers bearing hood staminodes with anthers that most likely contain fodder pollen; large fruits; and fusiform, longitudinally sulcate seeds with a large whitish aril at the base. It is the largest-fruited species of Lecythidaceae throughout its range.

Taxonomic notes: This species belongs to a group of species placed in Lecythis sect. Pisonis (common name = sapucaia group) by Mori in Mori and Prance (1990). This group is held together by morphological (Mori & Prance, 1981) and molecular (Mori et al., 2007) characters and may have to be recognized as a separate genus. The bluish-green bruising of the leaves, flowers, and fruits of this species is common to all species in this section and also in all species of Couroupita and a few species of Eschweilera (e.g., E. decolorans and E. laevicarpa).

Conservation: Flores (1994) and Chassot et al. (2005) consider L. ampla to be an endangered species in Costa Rica because it is under heavy logging pressure in the northern and Atlantic zones of the country. IUCN Red List: not on list (IUCN, 2009).

Uses: The seeds are eaten raw or boiled and can used in confectionary. It is difficult, however, to collect the them because they are high in the trees and because bats remove them before humans can collect them. An oil used for cooking can be extracted from all species of Lecythis sect. Pisonis to which L. ampla belongs. Secondary pressing of heated seeds yields oil suitable for soap production or for illumination. Knuth (1939) warns that the seed husks of related species must be removed before consuming the seeds before production of the oil because their contents can be harmful if consumed. Flores (1994) reports that peasants consuming the seeds of L. ampla sometimes experience hair and fingernail loss similar to that caused by the consumption of seeds of L. minor (see species page of that species). Seeds of L. ampla are eaten by animals after they fall to the ground and, because some of the seeds fall directly under the crown of the tree, hunters wait at night for animals to begin to feed on them, then shine lights into their eyes, and shoot them for food. The fruits are used for containers for growing plants and in the past for storing other items. Flores (1994) reports that the wood is dense and hard and is excellent for the construction of boats, tool handles, railroad ties, furniture and cabinets, heavy construction in general, and pilings and other marine construction. She adds that the wood does not lend itself to making paper pulp.

Etymology: The specific epithet most likely alludes to the large fruits of this species but there is no mention of this in the protologue. Miers (1874) described the species based on fruits alone and most surely was impressed by the large size of the type fruit.

Source: Based on Mori in Mori and Prance (1990).

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Lecythis ampla Miers: [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.