Mimosa asperata L.

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Authority

Barneby, Rupert C. 1991. Sensitivae Censitae. A description of the genus Mimosa Linnaeus (Mimosaceae) in the New World. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 65: 1-835.

Family

Mimosaceae

Scientific Name

Mimosa asperata L.

Type

269. Mimosa asperata Linnaeus, Syst. nat. ed. 10, 1312. 1759, based on Aeschynomene spinosa quarta Breyne, Exot. pl. cent. 44, t. 20. 1678 ["frutex brasiliensis"] and P. Miller, Fig. pl. Gard. Diet. t. 182, fig. 3. 1760 [1757] ["discovered . . . at La Ver

Synonyms

Mimosa pellita Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd., Mimosa berlandieri A.Gray, Mimosa asperata var. berlandieri (A.Gray ex Torr.) B.L.Rob., Mimosa pigra var. berlandieri (A.Gray ex Torr.) B.L.Turner, Mimosa spegazzinii var. glauca, Mimosa catalinae León

Description

Species Description - Broad-crowned free-standing or, when crowded, semiscandent shrubs (1—) 1.5—3.5(—5) m, erratically armed on internodes and on interpinnal segments of lf-rachis with perpendicular straight, laterally compressed, broad-based, early blanched aculei to (2.5-)4-l 1 x 2-6 mm (some young branchlets of some plants unarmed), the new stems, lf-stks and peduncles at once densely minutely gray-puberulent and either strigulose or hirsute with shorter subappressed or longer spreading-ascending, straight or flexuous, pallid or tawny setae to (0.5-)l-3(-6.5) mm long and ±0.05-0.2 mm diam. at base, the crowded subconcolorous lfts glabrous above, finely minutely silky-strigulose beneath, finely remotely setose-ciliolate, the pseudoracemose inflorescence of globose or ellipsoid capitula exserted up to 2 dm in early anthesis, but each fascicle of peduncles subtended by a hysteranthous lf, the fruits axillary to these, immersed in foliage. Stipules ascending, firm, lance-ovate or ligulate 2-6 x 1-2 mm, gray-puberulent or rarely glabrate dorsally, glabrous castaneous within, striately 6-9-nerved from base, tardily deciduous. Leaf-stalks 2.5-7(-9.5) cm, the petiole including (or sometimes reduced to) pulvinus 2—9(—11) x 0.7-1.2 mm, the longer interpinnal segments (5—)6—12(—14) mm, the ventral groove bridged between pinna-pairs and there charged with an ascending, commonly vulnerant, yellowish spicule (0.5—) 1.8— 9(-l 5) mm; pinnae of lvs below inflorescence 4- 7(-8)-jug., decrescent proximally, the rachis of longer ones 1.5—3(—3.5, in one instance 4) cm, the interfoliolar segments 0.6-1.6(-2) mm; lfts of longer pinnae 22-33-jug., decrescent at each end of rachis, the small first pair less than 1 mm distant from minute conic-subulate paraphyllidia less than 0.3 mm (often concealed by setae), the blades linear from obtusangulate or bluntly auriculate base, acute or apiculate at tip, those near mid-rachis (3.5-)4-9.5 x 0.7-1.2 mm, (4-)4.5-7(-8) times as long as wide, all veinless or almost so above, beneath 3-4(-6)-nerved from pulvinule, the slenderly prominulous nerves all parallel, the midrib a little forwardly displaced, the outermost nerves submarginal and produced to blade apex. Peduncles solitary and 2-4(-6) together, (10-) 14-3 3 mm; capitula without filaments 5.5-8 mm diam., prior to anthesis moriform, the obtuse 4-ribbed fl-buds scaberulous-strigulose distally, sometimes only minutely so, the narrowly clavate receptacle (2.5-)3-6 mm; bracts oblanceolate 0.6-1.1 mm, deciduous; flowers 4-merous 8-androus, subheteromorphic, the lowest staminate, shorter and more broadly turbinate than the vase-shaped bisexual upper ones; calyx turbinate-campanulate or patelliform, including the variably fimbriolate-denticulate orifice 0.4-0.7(-0.8) mm, glabrous externally; corolla (1.9-)2.3-3.2(-3.5) mm, the ovate, scarcely thickened 1-nerved lobes (0.7-)0.9-1.3 x 0.7-1.2 mm; filaments pink fading whitish, united at very base into a stemonozone 0.3-0.55 mm, exserted 2.5-5(-7) mm; ovary at anthesis either glabrous or pilosulous. Pods 1—3(—5) per capitulum, ascending from mid-capitulum upward, stipitate or subsessile, the stipe attaining 5 (-7) mm but usually less, the broad-linear, straight or slightly curved body (30-)40-7 5 x 9-11 (-13) mm, when well fertilized 8—14(—15)- seeded, the body broadly or narrowly cuneate at base, at apex broadly rounded but mucronulate or cuspidate, the almost straight replum 0.5-0.9(-l) mm wide, the reddish-brown or finally nigrescent valves low-convex over the horizontally transverse seeds, the replum and valves alike either minutely puberulent or not so and either strigose with slender subappressed-ascending setae or hirsute with vertically erect ones to 0.7-2 mm, these not concealing the often lustrous surface of valves, the ripe valves breaking up into free-falling, individually indehiscent, transversely oblong articles 4-7.5 mm long, each sealed at either end by a pithy septum 0.5-0.9 mm wide; seeds compressed-oblong-ellipsoid ±5.5-7 x 2.5-3 mm, the testa smooth, dull brown or brown- olivaceous.

Distribution and Ecology - In low, seasonally wet places, on river-banks and -bars, at edge of lagoons, along ditches, sometimes in standing water, discontinuously dispersed, below 250 m, in warm temperate and tropical North America: Gulf Coastal Plain from the mouth of Guadelupe River in Calhoun Co., Texas, to Veracruz and Tabasco, thence s. to Belize and adj. Guatemala (Petén); on the Pacific coastal plain in Mexico, from lower río Fuerte in n. Sinaloa s. into Nayarit; one record from Nicaragua; one population in w. Cuba (Pinar del Río).—Fl. and fr. almost throughout the year.— Map 35.

Discussion

Distribution

United States of America North America| Mexico North America| Guatemala Central America| Nicaragua Central America| Cuba South America|