Karwinskia oblongifolia Rusby
-
Authority
Rusby, Henry H. 1927. Descriptions of New Genera and Species of Plants Collected on the Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Valley 1921-1922. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 7: 205-387.
-
Family
Rhamnaceae
-
Scientific Name
-
Description
Species Description - (Fruiting specimen.) Very finely and softly gray-tomentellate, the upper leaf-surfaces bright-green and subglabrous. Branchlets slender, terete, ascending, leafy. Leaves opposite, the stipules 1 or 2 mm. long, broadly ovate. Petioles mostly 6 to 9 mm. long, slender, the margins strongly involute. Blades 5 to 10 cm. long, 2 to 3.5 cm. wide, narrowly or broadly oblong, with acute base and acute mucronate summit, entire, the slender midrib and 10 or 12 pairs of secondaries mostly narrowly channeled above, sharply prominent beneath, the straightish secondaries ascending at an angle of about 45 degrees and connected by innumerable straightish tertiaries. Cymes short-peduncled, 2- to 4-fruited, the pedicels slender, about half as long as the fruits, which are 8 to 10 mm. long and two thirds as broad, ellipsoid or slightly narrower at the base, sometimes tipped with a short style-base. Fruiting calyx 2 to 3 mm. broad, shallowly crateriform, bearing 5 very short setaceous teeth.
-
Discussion
This was a shrub, about a meter high, on the lake margin. Mr. Cardenas collected it as a good-sized tree a few days later, in the same locality (no. 1632). This specimen has leaves a half larger, and of narrower form. The writer collected it as a small tree, about fifty miles nearer the Beni River, November 12 (no. 1724), the fruit reported as being edible. The species is near K. Humboldtiana of Mexico.
-
Distribution
On the pampas about Lake Rogagua, at about 1,000 feet, Martin Cardenas, November 1, 1921 (no. 1394).
Bolivia South America|