Pouteria psammophila (Mart.) Radlk.

  • Authority

    Pennington, Terence D. 1990. Sapotaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 52: 1-750. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Sapotaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Pouteria psammophila (Mart.) Radlk.

  • Synonyms

    Labatia psammophila Mart., Achras ferruginea Casar., Lucuma psammophila A.DC., Lucuma nitida Pierre, Sapota ferruginea Walp., Lucuma psammophila var. xestophylla Miq., Pouteria nitida (A.DC.) Radlk., Pouteria crassinervia Engl., Guapeba psammophila Pierre, Guapeba nitida Pierre, Pouteria psammophila var. xestophylla (Miq.) Baehni, Pseudolabatia psammophila (Mart.) Aubrév., Xantolis psammophila (Mart.) Baehni

  • Description

    Species Description - Shrub or tree; young shoots puberulous (whitish to brown hairs), becoming glabrous, pale brown, cracked and fissured, without lenticels. Leaves clustered, spirally arranged, 8-16 × 47.1 cm, broadly oblong or elliptic to oblanceolate apex narrowly attenuate to rounded, base narrowly attenuate or acute, thinly coriaceous, glabrous and often shining above, lower surface sparsely appressed puberulous with brown hairs, or glabrous; venation eucamptodromous, midrib slightly raised on the upper surface, secondary veins 7-12 pairs, parallel, straight or slightly arcuate; intersecondaries absent; tertiaries widely spaced, oblique; quaternaries mostly at right angles to the tertiaries. Petiole 2.5-4 cm long, slightly channelled, puberulous to glabrous. Fascicles 3-6-flowered, axillary and below the leaves. Pedicel 1.5-2.5 mm long, puberulous. Flowers probably unisexual (see discussion below). Sepals four, 4-4.5 mm long, outer broadly ovate, hooded, apex obtuse, inner broadly elliptic, apex rounded, sericeous outside, inner pair with broad glabrous margin, glabrous inside. Corolla broadly tubular, 4-5 mm long, tube 3-3.5 mm long, lobes four, ca. 1.5 mm long, broadly oblong, apex rounded, fringed-ciliate. Stamens four, fixed about halfway up the corolla tube; filaments ca. 1.5 mm long, glabrous; anthers 1-1.25 mm long, broadly lanceolate, glabrous. Staminodes four, ca. 1 mm long, narrowly oblong, apex rounded, fringed-ciliate. Disk absent. Ovary ovoid, four-locular, densely long-strigose; style ca. 2 mm long after anthesis, glabrous in upper half; style-head minutely four-lobed. Fruit ca. 4 cm long, globose, apex and base rounded, or base slightly tapered, smooth, glabrous. Seeds 1-4, 2-2.5 cm long, ellipsoid, rounded at base and apex, slightly laterally compressed, testa smooth, adherent to pericarp, woody, 1-1.5 mm thick; scar adaxial and extending around the base, 7-8 mm wide, verruculose; embryo with plano-convex, free cotyledons, radicle extending to the surface; endosperm absent. Field characters. Shrub or tree to 10 m high and 30 cm diam. with scaly bark; slash contains white latex. Flowers whitish, fruit yellow to orange, speckled with red. Flowering in May and Sep-Nov, fruit maturing Mar to Sep. A recent study of the phenology of this species (J. C. de Andrade & A. G. de Andrade, 1983; A. G. de Andrade & J. C. de Andrade, 1984a), describes flowers with atrophied anthers (probably female) and flowers with fully formed anthers (functionally male?) from the same tree, which also produced fruit. Flowering and fruiting were erratic over a three year period, and the tree produced fully formed fruit only once during this time. The authors suggest that bats are the dispersal agents for this species.

  • Distribution

    States of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, in shrubby beach forest (restinga) and on granitic outcrops along the coast.

    Brazil South America| Rio de Janeiro Brazil South America| São Paulo Brazil South America|