Pouteria ramiflora (Mart.) Radlk.
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Authority
Pennington, Terence D. 1990. Sapotaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 52: 1-750. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Sapotaceae
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Scientific Name
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Synonyms
Labatia ramiflora Mart., Labatia chrysophylloides Mart., Lucuma ramiflora (Mart.) A.DC., Lucuma chrysophylloides A.DC., Labatia elliptica Pohl ex Miq., Lucuma lateriflora Benth. ex Miq., Lucuma parviflora Benth. ex Miq., Pouteria chrysophylloides (Mart.) Radlk., Pouteria lateriflora (Benth. ex Miq.) Radlk., Pouteria parviflora (Benth. ex Miq.) Radlk., Pseudocladia lateriflora (Benth. ex Miq.) Pierre, Microluma parviflora Baill., Pouteria ramiflora var. grandifolia Kuntze, Pouteria ramiflora var. oblongifolia Kuntze, Lucuma ramiflora var. lanceolata Pierre, Pouteria ovata A.C.Sm., Paralabatia parviflora (Benth. ex Miq.) Aubrév., Paralabatia ramiflora (Mart.) Aubrév., Richardella parviflora (Benth. ex Miq.) Baehni
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Description
Species Description - Tree; young shoots golden-tomentose, pubescent or finely appressed puberulous, becoming glabrous, often strongly fissured and scaling, greyish, usually without lenticels. Leaves spaced, spirally arranged, 5-18.4 × 2.5-8.4 cm, usually elliptic, less frequently ovate, lanceolate, obovate or oblanceolate, apex narrowly attenuate to rounded, base narrowly attenuate to truncate, often decurrent, coriaceous to chartaceous, glabrous above, varying from densely crisped-pubescent to glabrous below; venation eucamptodromous, marginal vein present, midrib slightly raised on the upper surface, secondary veins 816 pairs, parallel or convergent, slightly arcuate; intersecondaries extending to the margin or shorter or absent; tertiaries reticulate. Petiole 0.6-1.8 cm long, not channelled, often broadened by the decurrent leaf base, crisped pubescent to glabrous. Fascicles 5-15-flowered, axillary and in the axils of fallen leaves or frequently in axillary bracteolate densely-flowered racemes to 2.5 cm long. Pedicel (1.5-)2-5(-6) mm long, tomentose to finely puberulous. Flower unisexual (plant dioecious). Sepals four, 1.5-2.5 mm long, ovate, apex obtuse or rounded, puberulous outside, glabrous inside, or with some appressed fine indumentum. Corolla 1.5-3.5 mm long, tube 1-2 mm long, lobes four, 0.5-1.5 mm long, broadly ovate to suborbicular, apex rounded, glabrous or with sparse appressed hairs outside. Stamens four, fixed near the top of the corolla tube; filaments 0.1-0.5 mm long, sometimes strongly curved, glabrous; anthers 0.3-0.8 mm long, lanceolate, glabrous, absent in female flowers. Staminodes four, 0.3-1 mm long, lanceolate to subulate, glabrous. Disk absent. Ovary ovoid (female) or flattened and broad (male), 2(-3)-locular, densely stiff-pubescent; style 0.75-2 mm long after anthesis, glabrous; style-head simple. Fruit 2.5-5 cm long, usually turbinate or broadly pyriform, less frequently ellipsoid, apex usually rounded or truncate, rarely acute, base tapered, smooth, densely pubescent at first, becoming glabrous before maturity. Seed solitary, 1.6-3.2 cm long, ellipsoid, rounded, slightly or moderately laterally compressed, testa smooth, shining, ca. 0.5 mm thick; scar adaxial and extending around the base, 3-6 mm wide, usually tapering from near the apex to base; embryo with plano-convex free cotyledons, radicel extending to the surface; endosperm absent. Field characters. A gnarled and short-trunked tree to 10 m high (in cerrado), or a tree to 25 m high (in gallery forest). Bark reddish-brown, thick, corky, deeply fissured and grid-cracked; slash exudes watery white latex. The leaves are usually slightly glaucous on the lower surface. Flowers greenish-white, often scented, fruit blue-green to yellowish. Throughout the range of the species most flowering is from Mar to Sep, with occasional records at other times; fruiting Oct to Feb.
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Discussion
The fruit is edible.
Relationships.
Pouteria ramiflora shows considerable variation throughout its range in leaf shape, venation, texture and in indumentum type and quantity. The typical plant is a small gnarled shrub or short-trunked tree of cerrado in Minas Gerais and Goias. Its leaves are broad (often less than twice as long as broad) with rounded apex, coriaceous, usually with some crisped pubescence persisting on the lower surface, and with well-developed intersecondary veins which may extend to the margin. Throughout the same region, but confined to gallery forest, is a rather different looking plant, a tree to 25 m high with thinner, narrower, glabrous leaves with acute or attenuate apex, with less obvious intersecondaries. Although confined to gallery forest in the southernmost part of its range, in Rondonia, Para and Maranhão the latter plant is found as a component of grassy campo islands in otherwise forested areas. The most extreme form is that described originally as Pouteria lateriflora and Pouteria parviflora from Para. The leaves of these are thin textured, glabrous and lacking intersecondary veins, and the young parts are usually clothed in fine appressed indumentum in contrast to the crisped tomentum found on the typical specimens.
Analysis of this variation indicates that it is very diffuse, with a lack of discontinuity between the different states of each character, and with a lack of correlation in the variability of several characters. For example the broad-leaved rounded apex type may be glabrous or with varying amounts of pubescence, and the thin-leaved "lateriflora" type, which is glabrous in some localities, may have the crisped pubescence of the southern cerrado type elsewhere. Leaf shape varies widely and continuously throughout the range. Floral variation is confined to slight and continuous size differences. In the absence of well-defined geographical correlation and the lack of discontinuity in morphological characters, P. ramiflora is treated as a single variable species.
Some glabrous, thin-leaved specimens of P. ramiflora are superficially similar to P. orinocoensis. Their distinguishing features are enumerated under the latter. The racemose inflorescence, tetramerous flowers, and proportion of corolla tube length to corolla lobe length (tube longer than lobes) are sufficient to distinguish it from all other small-flowered members of this section.
Distribution and Ecology: Central and S Brazil, extending north into Amazonia and west to Bolivia, and a single record from Paraguay. In the central and southern part of its range it is a common plant of rocky or sandy cerrado and gallery forest, and in the north it occurs in sandy campo islands and in white sand Campina (Pará, Rondônia). Its altitudinal range is from 200-1300 meters.
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Common Names
Abiu, abiu carriola, abiu do campo, curiola, graos de gallo, guajara, ibacoixa, mandapuca, massaranduba, massaranduba vermelha, massarandubinha, Pitomba de leite
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Objects
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Distribution
Brazil South America| Amazonas Brazil South America| Bahia Brazil South America| Ceará Brazil South America| Distrito Federal Brazil South America| Goiás Brazil South America| Maranhão Brazil South America| Mato Grosso Brazil South America| Minas Gerais Brazil South America| Pará Brazil South America| Piauí Brazil South America| Rondônia Brazil South America| São Paulo Brazil South America| Bolivia South America| Beni Bolivia South America| La Paz Bolivia South America| Santa Cruz Bolivia South America| Paraguay South America|