Tabebuia berteroi (DC.) Britton
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Authority
Gentry, Alwyn H. 1992. Bignoniaceae--part II (Tribe Tecomeae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 25: 1-370. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Bignoniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
[Written as Tecoma berterii in manuscript] Type. Dominican Republic. Bertero s.n. (G-DC; F neg. 33896).
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Synonyms
Tecoma berteroi DC., Tabebuia anisophylla Urb.
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Description
Species Description - Small tree to 10 m tall, dichotomously branched, the branchlets terete, lepidote, drying darkish with lighter lenticels when young. Leaves (1-)3-5-foliolate, the leaflets oblanceolate to elliptic or obovate, obtuse to rounded at apex, more or less cuneate at base, the terminal 1.5-6(-13) cm long, 0.6-3(-6.5) cm wide, the basals (0.5-)l-4(-9) cm long, 0.3-2(-4.5) cm wide, coriaceous, densely lepidote above and below, especially the higher altitude forms with scattered brownish scales below as well as the dense whitish ones, drying olive above, conspicuously whitish below with contrastingly darker main veins, venation brochidodromous, the main veins usually slightly impressed above and raised below, the margin entire; petiolules 0.3-2 cm long, the petiole mostly 1-6 cm long. Inflorescence of one-few terminal flowers, lepidote, with persistent linear bracts and bracteoles or these caducous. Flowers with calyx irregularly bilabiate, 11-14 mm long, 6-8 mm wide, densely lepidote, drying dark; corolla pale magenta to white, tubular-infundibuliform above the well-defined narrow base of tube, (3-)3.5-7 cm long, 1-2 cm wide at mouth of tube, the tube (2.5-)3-4 cm long, the lobes 1-2 cm long, glabrous outside, inside rather scurfy puberulous in floor of tube, villous at level of stamen insertion, the lobes irregularly ciliate; filaments ca. 1.5 cm long, the anthers deeply included, the thecae divaricate, 2 mm long, the connective slightly thickened and extended; pistil with the ovary linear, 5-6 mm long, 1 mm wide, very densely whitish lepidote; disk cylindric-pulvinate, 2 mm long, 3 mm wide. Fruit linear-cylindric, longitudinally striate-costate, drying blackish, with a roughish-looking surface, 7-16(-20) cm long, 6-8 mm wide, lepidote with blackish scales, the calyx persistent; seeds thin, bialate, 4-7 mm long, 15-20 mm wide, the hyaline membranaceous wings distinctly demarcated from seed body.
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Discussion
This species is very close to mostly Bahaman T. bahamensis and to Cuban T. arimaoensis. It can be told from T. bahamensis by the petiolules either shorter or thicker and especially by the leaflet bases more cuneate and not as evenly rounded or obtuse as in that species. On Hispaniola T. berteroi intergrades with T. obovata both in northern Haiti (Ekman H8478, H4956, Leonard & Leonard 9718, 14771, 15233) and near Santiago, Dominican Republic (see under T. obovata), where a form with mostly unifoliolate leaves (but including some 3-foliolate leaves) occurs. A form from Samaná Peninsula (Ekman 15124) that has long petiolate leaflets usually not very whitish below and with a 20 cm, long fruit with a smooth surface, except for longitudinal striations, approaches T. polyantha. On the Barahona Peninsula it has smaller denser leaves that are less conspicuously whitish below, approaching small coriaceous-leaved forms of T. heterophylla. In general, plants from moister areas and higher altitudes tend to have conspicuously larger leaflets and the extremes look very different from dry-area collections, but the continuous variation precludes taxonomic recognition. The only Cuban collection which is definitely referable to T. berteroi is the type of T. anisophylla, which is virtually identical with the Barahona peninsula population. The Stockholm lectotype is 3-5-foliolate with leaflets clearly basally cuneate and whitish below and with larger reddish scales scattered among the otherwise white-lepidote surface, just as in T. berteroi. The scrappy New York isotype is not as good a match with T. berteroi. The Cuban collection has some leaflets that are more acutish than is usually the case on Hispaniola, but were it from Hispaniola it would be identified as T. berteroi without hesitation. Tabebuia anisophylla was noted by its author to be very close to T. arimaoensis and most of the material that I refer to T. arimaoensis was identified previously as T. anisophylla. As I define it, T. arimaoensis has a more erose and narrowly oblong-elliptic leaflet than does any material of T. berteroi and especially differs in lacking the scattered reddish scales intermixed with the dense whitish ones on the leaflet undersurface. Tabebuia berteroi may be regarded as similar to the common ancestor that has probably radiated to give rise to the various Cuban species with white leaf undersides and a tendency to greater development of long-stalked peltate scales (and their presumed simple stalk-derivatives)— T. bibracteolata, T. pulverulenta, T. polymorpha, and T. bahamensis (also in the Bahamas). Whereas speciation has more or less proceeded to completion on Cuba, T. berteroi remains a polymorphic assemblage interconnected by intermediates on Hispaniola.
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Common Names
aceituno, munieco, roble
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Objects
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Distribution
Common throughout Hispaniola; one collection from Oriente, Cuba. Sea level to 1200(-1600) m elevation.
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