Cecropia telenitida Cuatrec.

  • Authority

    Berg, Cornelius C. & Franco Rosselli, Pilar. 2005. Cecropia. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 94: 1--230. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Urticaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Cecropia telenitida Cuatrec.

  • Type

    Type. Colombia. Norte de Santander: Mun. Toledo, Río Samaria, 2000-2100 m, 30 Oct 1941 ([female]), Cuatrecasas, Schultes & E. Smith 12781 (holotype: COL; isotype: F).

  • Synonyms

    Cecropia telealbida Cuatrec., Cecropia telenivea Cuatrec., Cecropia teleincana Cuatrec., Cecropia santanderensis Cuatrec., Cecropia angelica C.C.Berg & P.Franco

  • Description

    Species Description - Tree, to 15(-30) m tall. Leafy twigs 2-8 cm thick, green to bluish by a waxy layer, glabrous or (initially) with dense brown pluricellular trichomes, hirtellous, villous to hirsute, or puberulous with straight white (unicellular) hairs; internodes with scarce pith. Lamina (sub)coriaceous, ca. 30 × 30 cm to 90 × 90 cm (to 100 × 100 cm), the segments 7-10(-11), the free parts of the upper segments ovate to elliptic to oblong to (sub)obovate, the incisions down to 4/10-9/10; apices rounded to short-acuminate; upper surface smooth or scabridulous (to scabrous), very sparsely to densely puberulous (to hirtellous or subvelutinous) or hispidulous and with sparse to dense arachnoid indumentum, often slightly bullate, lower surface hirtellous to subtomentose (or puberulous), especially on the main veins hirsute to villous, or main veins subglabrous, with very short arachnoid indumentum in the areoles or also on the reticulum and usually very sparse to rather dense longer arachnoid indumentum on the main veins and supported by the other indumentum on the smaller veins (the arachnoid indumentum thus in two distinct layers); lateral veins in the free part of the midsegment 7-16 pairs, submarginally loop-connected, unbranched or branched, the smaller veins often prominent; petiole ca. 25-90 cm long, glabrous, villous in the upper or also the lower part, also with arachnoid indumentum and/or dense brown pluricellular trichomes (sometimes at the base dense, and suggesting the occurrence of trichilia, but Mullerian bodies lacking), or puberulous; trichilia absent or present, weakly developed without Mullerian bodies or with Mullerian bodies and separate or fused (and then sometimes lobate), the brown indumentum intermixed with short or also long white hairs; stipules (12-)20-55 cm long, green to orange to pink to reddish to dark maroon, with sparse to dense dark brown pluricellular hairs and sparsely minutely puberulous to tomentellous or often also sparsely to densely hirsute to villous to sericeous, subglabrous, subhirsute or hirtellous outside, densely to sparsely subvillous to subsericeous or subglabrous inside. Staminate inflorescences solitary or in pairs, (usually/always?) subtended by caducous bracts, to 8 cm long, the peduncle erect and the spikes spreading to subpendulous; peduncle 2-11 cm long, glabrous or in the upper part sparsely to densely (sub)villous or puberulous to hirtellous to subhirsute; spathe 9-24 cm long, red-brown to orange to pinkish or yellowish brown or yellowish, rather sparsely to densely (sub)villous to hirsute or also with sparse arachnoid indumentum outside, sparsely hairy or glabrous inside; spikes 5-12(-16), 6-25 × ca. 0.5-1 cm, sessile or with stipes to 1 cm long and hairy; rachis hairy. Staminate flowers: perianth tubular, 1-2(-2.5) mm long, (sparsely) puberulous or glabrous below the apex, the apex slightly convex, glabrous; filaments swollen; anthers 0.6-0.8 mm long, detached at anthesis (?). Pistillate inflorescences solitary or in pairs, erect to deflexed, (usually/always?) subtended by caducous bracts, to 8 cm long; peduncle 4-12(-15) cm long, glabrous or sparsely villous or ± densely hirtellous to puberulous; spathe 6-13 cm long, the color and indumentum as in the staminate inflorescence; spikes (l-)4-5(-6), purplish or reddish, 3-12 × 0.7-1.6 cm, to 25 × 2.5 cm in fruit, subsessile (or with to 2 cm long stipes); rachis subglabrous. Pistillate flowers: perianth 2-2.5 mm long, with arachnoid indumentum below the apex outside, also below the style channel inside (or the style channel minutely puberulous), the apex conical to convex, hispidulous near the slitshaped aperture; style rather long, puberulous; stigma comose to subpeltate. Fruit oblongoid to subobovoid, 2-2.5 mm long, tuberculate or smooth.

  • Discussion

    The species is in cultivation in the Botanical Garden "José Celestino Mutis" in Bogotá (9 Jun 1993 [male] Franco et al. 4461 [BG, COL]).

    The type material of Cecropia teleincana and C. santandarensis, or more generally, the material collected in Antioquia and Santander (Colombia), differs (somewhat) from the other collections of the species in the relatively short stipules (to 25 cm), in the hirsute rather than villous indumentum, and in the relatively long peduncle (to 15 cm long) and relatively short spikes of the pistillate inflorescence. Moreover, specimens with this hirsute indumentum (such as Callejas et al 11110 and Franco et al. 4579) appear to be rather often (?) inhabited by ants, in contrast to the type with villous indumentum as common in other parts of the species range, for which the presence of ants has never been recorded. The material from Ecuador and Peru shows some differences in the length of the hairs on the leafy twigs and longer spikes in the staminate inflorescences. The variation found is not unusual in Cecropia species and does not justify recognition of infraspecific taxa. The longest spikes sometimes perforate the apex of the spathe of the pistillate inflorescences before anthesis.

  • Common Names

    yarumo bianco

  • Distribution

    The Andean region of Venezuela to southern Colombia, in the central and eastern Cordilleras, and from southern Ecuador to northern Peru, in cloud forest, as Podocarpus forest in Ecuador, at (1200-) 1400-2600 m.

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