Smith, Albert C. & Wodehouse, R. P. 1938. The American species of Myristicaceae. Brittonia. 2: 393-527. f. 1-9.
Myristicaceae
Species Description - Tree, glabrous throughout; branchlets slender, striate; petioles rugose, shallowly canaliculate, 7-15 mm. long; leaf blades papyraceous, usually translucent, elliptic or obovate-elliptic, 11-17 cm. long, 4.5-8 cm. broad, acute or attenuate at base and decurrent on the petiole, abruptly acuminate at apex (acumen obtuse, 10-15 mm. long), the secondary nerves 6-8 per side, arcuate-ascending, raised above, prominent beneath, the tertiary nerves and reticulate veinlets prominulous on both surfaces; staminate inflorescences about 2 cm. long, narrowly paniculate, the rachis slender, bearing several alternate lateral branches 1-2 mm. long, the peduncle very short; flowers 3-5 at the apices of lateral branches, the pedicels slender, up to 1.5 mm. long; perianth thin carnose, slightly obpyramidal, minutely puberulent within, about 2 mm. long at anthesis, 3-lobed; androecium about 1 mm. long, the filament column less than 0.4 mm. long, leading into a carnose obconical connective mass about 0.8 mm. in diameter at apex, the summit slightly convex, the anthers 5 or 6, 0.5-0.6 mm. long; pistillate infloreseences resembling the staminate but with fewer flowers, the perianth slightly larger than the staminate, the ovary subglobose, glandular-punctate, the stigma peltate, subsessile; fruiting inflorescences not seen; fruit ovoid, about 1.7 cm. long.
Ad sectionem Coniostele pertinens; a C. Trianae foliis papyraceis saepe translucentibus saepe subobovatis apice abrupte acuminatis, antheris paucioribus differt; a C. excelsa (supra descripta) inflorescentiis maseulis brevioribus, perianthio 3-lobato, floribus merosioribus valde differt.
Type, J. C. Mutis 3486, collected between 1760 and 1808 in Colombia and deposited in the U. S. National Herbarium (no. 1562795).
The cited specimens are duplicates of material in the Jardin Botanico, Madrid. Our specimens are without fruit, but Mr. E. P. Killip has noted the dimensions of a single fruit on the Madrid specimen. The type bears staminate flowers, the other cited specimen being pistillate.
It is unfortunate that the two species last described are without complete collectors' data. It is likely that both Mutis and Triana obtained their specimens in the Magdalena Valley, a region much neglected by recent collectors and doubtless the home of many species which are important in connecting the floras of North and South America.
Colombia South America|