Maguire, Bassett & Wurdack, John J. 1958. The botany of the Guayana Highland--Part III. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 10: 1-156.
Myrtaceae
Species Description - Tree 10-20 m high and 15-30 cm in diameter, glabrous except the vegetative buds (thickly) and the abortive axes at the bases of the panicles (sparingly) appressed-pubescent with reddish dibrachiate hairs 0.3-0.5 mm long, a few hairs sometimes persisting about the base of the panicle proper; branchlets narrowly winged as in Calyptranthes, the wings scarcely 0.2 mm wide; leaves elliptic-ovate, 2-4 cm wide, 5.5-10 cm long, 2.2-3 times as long as wide, about equally narrowed to the acuminate tip and the acute or cuneate base, the margins long-decurrent on the channeled petiole 1 mm thick, 4-6 mm long; midvein impressed above, prominent beneath; lateral veins closely and finely parallel, more than 25 pairs including the intermediates, slightly elevated but inconspicuous on both sides; marginal vein about equaling the laterals, somewhat arched between them, 1-1.5 mm from the margin; blades green and abundantly gland-dotted (often impressed-punetate) above, paler and pale-dotted beneath; inflorescence of paired panicles 4-7 (-9) em long, 2-3 times compound, up to about 30-flowered, arising from the lowest node of a tangentially compressed abortive axillary axis 1.5-3 mm long and up to 2 mm wide; lowest branches of the panicle 2-3 cm long; peduncle 1.5-3 (-5) cm long, somewhat compressed, 1 mm wide at the summit; flowers mostly appearing short-pedicellate near the tips; bracts and bracteoles very soon deciduous; buds 2.5-3 mm long, obovoid, closed and obscurely apiculate, turbinate or constricted about the middle and then obtuse at the base; calyptra dome-like, 1.5-2 mm across; hypanthium in anthesis eampanulate, about 2 mm high and wide, prolonged 1.5 mm beyond the summit of the ovary; style 5-7 mm long; stamens about 60, to 5 mm long, the anthers 0.3 mm long; petals none; ovary bilocular with 2 ascending ovules in each locule; fruit glandularverrucose, globose, 7-8 mm in diameter, crowned with the persistent hypanthiumtube 2 mm wide, 1 mm high.
The description of flowering material was taken from the Tafelberg specimens collected by Maguire; description of fruit is from Tate's specimen from Duida I concur, although somewhat reluctantly, with Amshoff's opinion that the Suriname plant is eonspecific with the original specimens of C. lucida, which came from Bahia, Brazil. Relatively few species have such a disjunct range interrupted by the Amazon River, and study of the actual type-specimen of C. lucida may show that this represents another species than the one considered here. Berg's full description of C. lucida (in Mart. Fl. Bras. 141: 51-52. 1857) could be applied to the Suriname plant except that he states that the buds are 2 lines (more than 4 mm) long, and that the midvein is scarcely impressed ("supra vix impresso"). Study of a photograph of Martius' specimens (F.M. Neg. 19888) suggests that the branchlets are indeed narrowly winged as in the Suriname plant, that the buds are about 3 mm long, and that the midvein is impressed to about the same extent as in the Suriname plant.
Venezuela South America|