Senna bacillaris (L.f.) H.S.Irwin & Barneby var. bacillaris
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Authors
Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby
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Authority
Irwin, Howard S. & Barneby, Rupert C. 1982. The American Cassiinae. A synoptical revision of Leguminosae tribe Cassieae subtrib Cassiinae in the New World. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 35, part 1: 1-454.
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Family
Caesalpiniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Holotypus, LINN 528.2 & 3!—Cathartocarpus bacillus Persoon, Syn. Pl. 1: 459. 1805, nom. illegit. Bactyrilobium bacillare (Linnaeus fil.) Hornemann, Hort. Havn. 1: 392. 1813. Chamaefistula bacillaris (Linnaeus fil.) G. Don, Gen. Hist. Diehl. Pl. 2: 451. 18
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Synonyms
Cassia bacillaris L., Bactyrilobium bacillare (L.f.) Hornem., Chamaefistula bacillaris (L.f.) G.Don, Mimosa nodosa L., Cassia puberula Kunth, Chamaefistula puberula G.Don, Cassia carthaginensis Willd. ex Steud., Cassia inaequilatera Balb. ex DC., Chamaefistula inaequilatera G.Don, Cassia fockeana Miq., Cassia insignis N.E.Br.
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Description
Variety Description - Vesture of lvs and inflorescence appressed or rarely incumbent white or grayish; lfts intricately reticulate on both faces, the smaller defined areoles 1 mm diam; functional stamens 7, the 3 abaxial long-beaked ones of ± equal size; ovules 122-204.—Collections: 243. [Key: "Androecium functionally 7-merous, the anther of the centric (antesepalous) abaxial stamen not or scarcely smaller than that of its immediate (antepetalous) neighbors, fertile; n. Colombia, n. Brazil (Terr, do Roraima) and the Guianas n.-ward; widely cultivated."]
Distribution and Ecology - Margins of woods, thickets, often along streams, becoming weedy in disturbed forest, along hedges, and in abandoned fields or orchards, mostly below 300 m but ascending in Venezuela to 1000-1400 m on the Gran Sabana (Bolivar) and Cordillera Costanera (Distrito Federal and Miranda) and on upper Rio Branco in Brazil to 1525 m, widely dispersed around the s. circumference of the Caribbean and in n.-e. South America, from s. Nicaragua (Chontales) through Costa Rica (rare), Panama (common, in almost all provinces), n. Colombia (n. from lat. 6°N) and n. Venezuela (uncommon, in Cordillera Costanera, Isla Margarita and Paria Peninsula) to Trinidad, Tobago and Windward Islands (St. Vincent, Martinique), thence s. in Venezuela to the Gran Sabana (Bolivar), upper Rio Branco in Brazil (n. Terr, do Roraima), interior upland and coastal lowland Guyana, and lowland n. Surinam. Reported from Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands (St. Thomas). Long cultivated in tropical gardens of Old and New Worlds (Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Florida, Hawaii, Java, East Africa (Brenan, 1967, p. 70, sub. C. fruticosa), and formerly in European conservatories.—Fl. in Central and n. South America most abundantly VIII-II, but also, both wild and cultivated, at intervals through the year.
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Discussion
Except that we emphatically exclude Cassia fruticosa, with consequences to the dispersal of the species, our concept of S. bacillaris and its synonymy differ but little from that of Bentham (1871). We reinterpret C. inaequilatera Balb. as a synonym of S. bacillaris, now known to be common in the foothills of Sa. Nevada de Santa Marta, and not equivalent to S. papillosa, the species to which Bentham tentatively applied the name. Cassia insignis represents a form of S. bacillaris in which the stipules are dilated into falcately oblanceolate blades that tend to persist long into the adult life of the associated leaf. In the protologue N. E. Brown compared C. insignis with C. latifolia, which has stipules of the same type, rather than with C. bacillaris, of which it has all other attributes. We now have collections of S. bacillaris from all sides of the Roraima Plateau, some closely resembling the typus of C. insignis, but others with narrower or early deciduous stipules, some with strigulose annotinous stems and foliage, and some with finely pilosulous stems; but these variations appear independent of one another.
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Distribution
Bolívar Venezuela South America| Distrito Federal Venezuela South America| Miranda Venezuela South America| Chontales Nicaragua Central America| Panama Central America| Colombia South America| Venezuela South America| Trinidad and Tobago South America| Martinique South America| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines South America| Guyana South America| Suriname South America| Puerto Rico South America| Saint Thomas Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Jamaica South America| Puerto Rico South America| Florida United States of America North America| Hawaii United States of America North America| Java Indonesia Asia|