Tabebuia incana A.H.Gentry
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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
Type. Brazil. Amazonas: Manaus, Reserva Florestal Ducke, 29 Oct 1968 (fl), Aluisio 236 (holotype, INPA; isotype, MO).
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Description
Species Description - Tree to 30 m, branchlets subtetragonal, the epidermis rather loose, minutely stellate-tomentose when young. Leaves palmately 5-foliolate, the leaflets evenly elliptic, acute, rounded or broadly cuneate at the base, 3.5-12 cm long, 1.2-6 cm wide, entire, membranaceous to chartaceous, above stellate pubescent along the midvein, otherwise scattered lepidote, below densely tomentose with minute sessile or subsessile stellate trichomes, drying brown or blackish above, contrastingly tan or silvery below from the trichomes, the less pubescent veins below sometimes drying darker; petiolules 0.5-2.7 cm long, petiole 3.5-8 cm long, finely stellate-tomentose. Inflorescence a highly contracted subfasciculate panicle, the peduncles and pedicels hardly visible, less than 5 mm long, stellate rufescent. Flowers with the calyx campanulate, 5-8 mm long, 5-7 mm wide, densely stellate-rufescent, also with some simple trichomes; corolla yellow, tubular-infundibuliform, 6-7.2 cm long, ca. 1.5 cm wide at the mouth of the tube, the tube 4.8-5.5 cm long, the lobes 1.5-2 cm long, the tube glabrous outside, the lobes lepidote and ciliate, otherwise glabrous, the tube inside glabrous dorsally, densely villous with simple trichomes to 1.5 mm long ventrally, glandular villous at the level of stamen insertion; stamens didynamous, the thecae divaricate, 2-3 mm long; pistil 2.4-2.5 cm long, the ovary oblong, 5 mm long, 1.5 mm wide, glabrous, finely longitudinally impressed-striate, the ovules ca. 8-seriate in each locule; disk pulvinate, 0.7 mm long, 2 mm wide. Fruit a linear capsule, subterete 34-39 cm long, 0.9-1 cm wide, the calyx not persistent, glabrescently golden stellate tomentose; seeds not seen.
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Discussion
Uses. The bark of this species has been reportedly used as an additive to the hallucinogenic beverage ayahuasca in Amazonian Peru (Luna, 1984). The only Amazonian Tabebuia with a very fine dense silvery to tannish indumentum on the leaf underside. The closest relative is T. arianeae of central coastal Brazil, which has more bullate leaflets and a longer, completely glabrous fruit. There are two unidentified collections related to T. incana from Amazonian Venezuela but which differ in having more coriaceous leaflets with conspicuous black glands along the midvein below and a finely yellow-puberulous fruit with conspicuously darker glandular areas; the calyx is persistent in fruit and is finely yellowish tomentose with conspicuous glands as in T. barbata. These collections— Williams 14900 (VEN) from Río San Miguel, Alto Río Negro, and Huber 1861 (MO) from Canaripo, Río Ventuari—probably represent a new species which, in the absence of flowers, I have refrained from describing.
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Common Names
tahuari, pau d’arco, pou-d’arco, pau-d’arco-amarelo
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Objects
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Distribution
Poor rather sandy soils of central and upper Amazonia; below 500 m elevation.
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