From Huang et al. (in review)

Lecythis chartacea clade (76% BS; Fig. 1A) —This clade is distributed in Amazonian Venezuela, the Guianas, and in western to eastern Amazonian Brazil (Huang, 2010). None of the morphological characters that were included in the analysis provide synapomorphies for this clade, and the only apparent morphological distinction for this clade are the more-or-less fusiform seeds with salient longitudinally oriented major veins and the areas between them with salient higher order veins (Figs. 7F, 9). These seeds differ from the smooth inter-venal areas of the seeds of the L. ollaria clade (Fig. 8A–C), the dendritically arranged pattern and plane or impressed veins of the L. poiteaui clade (Fig. 8N­–P), and the hard seed coat of the Bertholletia excelsa clade (Fig. 6G). Members of the L. chartacea clade share some features with the L. poiteaui, B. excelsa, and, to a lesser extent, the L. ollaria clades, such as androecial hoods that possess either swept in appendages (Figs. 5D, 7A, 7I, 7L) or a single coil (Fig. 4A, 4G). In addition, zygomorphic-flowered species with these types of androecial hoods do not possess obvious nectaries, like those seen in the Eschweilera integrifolia (Figs. 10A, B) and E. parvifolia (Figs 14B, H) clades and the outgroup genus Couratari. The presence of mucilage ducts in the ovary and/or the calyx-lobes (character 17) is found in both the L. poiteaui (Figs. 5E, 5H, 5L) and L. chartacea clades but they are more common in the former clade; relatively long, obliquely oriented or geniculate styles occur in the L. poiteaui (Fig. 5G), B. excelsa (Fig. 6B), and L. chartacea (Figs. 7B, J) clades; indehiscent fruits, although derived differently, are in the L. poiteaui, B. excelsa, and L. chartacea clades. Moreover, there are both dehiscent- and indehiscent-fruited species in each of the L. poiteaui and L. chartacea clades. The fruit dehiscence of B. excelsa, described above, is completely different from those in the L. poiteaui and L. chartacea clades. In the L. poiteaui clade, indehiscent fruits can be either large fruits with relatively thin pericarps that fall to the ground without dehiscing (e.g., L. lurida and L. prancei S. A. Mori, Fig. 5I) or they have tardily dehiscent fruits that, even when they open, do not release the seeds because they are so large that they do not easily fall from the fruit (e.g., L. ibiriba N. P. Smith et al., Fig. 5N). In both indehiscent and tardily indehiscent fruits of the Lecythis poiteaui clade the seeds are large, more-less-round (i.e., not markedly longer than broad), have plane or slightly impressed, dendritic veins, and a vestigial aril or no sign of an aril (Figs. 5J, P, 8M–P). In that same clade, L. poiteaui and L. barnebyi have dehiscent fruits and seeds with short, rounded arils.

The indehiscent fruits of the L. chartacea clade are possessed by the riverine species L. rorida (treated as a synonym of L. chartacea by Mori, 1990b) which usually drop into the water with the non-arillate seeds trapped inside and the terra firme species L. gracieana S. A. Mori and L. parvifructa S. A. Mori with relatively small, single-seeded fruits, that fall to the ground at maturity. All of the remaining species sampled in this clade have dehiscent fruits and seeds with well-developed basal arils.

 Lecythis brancoensis is sister to all other species of the L. chartacea clade, but was included in Lecythis section Poiteaui by Mori (1990b). It differs from other species of the L. chartacea clade in the presence of anthers or antherodes (Fig. 2A; character 32) on the innermost appendages of the androecial hood and the absence of a closed androecium (33). It was placed in Lecythis sect. Poiteaui based on the hypothesis that L. brancoensis is also bat-pollinated, which is suggested by its unbranched terminal inflorescence and hood anthers or antherodes. In addition, L. brancoensis shares papillate abaxial leaf blade surfaces with the bat-pollinated L. barnebyi and L. poiteaui. In Huang et al. (2011), L. brancoensis was recovered as a clade with the two known bat-pollinated species of Lecythis sect. Poiteaui; however, the current study does not support the relationship between the bat-pollinated species of the Lecythis poiteaui clade (Fig. 1A) and the hypothetical bat-pollinated L. brancoensis of the L. chartacea clade.