Zeyheria

Authority

Gentry, Alwyn H. 1992. Bignoniaceae--part II (Tribe Tecomeae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 25: 1-370. (Published by NYBG Press)

Family

Bignoniaceae

Scientific Name

Zeyheria

Type

Type species. Zeyheria montana.

Synonyms

Zeyhera Mart. ex DC.

Description

Genus Description - Shrubs to trees, the bark often rather thick and vertically fissured, lacking pseudostipules or interpetiolar glandular fields, the branchlets stellate pubescent. Leaves palmately (3-)5-foliolate, usually with subsessile basal leaflets, strongly discolorous, densely tannish or grayish stellate tomentose below. Inflorescence a dichotomously branched terminal panicle with conspicuous linear bracts. Flowers brownish or tannish outside, yellowish to dark orangish or purplish inside, the calyx bilabiately split to near base, the corolla not contracted to narrower tube at base, the lobes narrow and almost valvate in bud, densely stellate-tomentose outside, glabrous inside except at stamen insertion; stamens didynamous, the thecae divergent to divaricate, glabrous, the filaments glabrous or pubescent; style glabrous or sparsely pubescent, the ovary globose to ellipsoid, densely stellate-pilose, sometimes stipitate, the ovules multiseriate in each locule; disk puberulous, annular-pulvinate at base of stipe or fused with base of ovary. Fruit a round to broadly obovoid capsule, slightly compressed, densely tannish tomentose, verrucose with spine-like enations; seeds thin, more or less orbicular with the hyaline wing surrounding the rather large body.

Discussion

Although usually spelled Zeyhera (following de Candolle 1838, 1845 and Bureau & K. Schumann, 1897), the original spelling is Zeyheria.

Distribution

A South American genus of two species, mostly in drier parts of sub-Amazonian Brazil but ranging west to Bolivia.

Brazil South America| Bolivia South America|