Disciphania tessmannii Diels
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Authority
Mori, S. A. 1987. The Lecythidaceae of a lowland Neotropical Forest: La Fumée mountain, French Guiana. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 44: 1-190.
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Family
Menispermaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Slender vines, glabrous except for the minutely ciliolate bracts, the flowering branchlets smooth, channeled, 1-2 mm diam; petioles 2-8 cm long, slender beyond the twisted inflated base, below the blade 0.4-0.6 mm diam; leaf-blades (dry) membranous, olive-green and dull both sides, ovate-cordate-acuminate, 4.5-10 cm long, 2.5-6.5 cm wide, the basal sinus broad and square, 2-18 mm deep, the descending lobes broadly rounded or rarely angulate (the blade then incipiently hastate), the lanceolate acute acumen 7-12 mm long; major venation of 5 nerves palmately ascending from base of blade, the inner pair incurved to beyond middle of blade, these all slender but prominulous both sides, the costa giving rise to 2 secondaries from each side above the middle, the tertiary venation faint, immersed or nearly so, the ultimate defined areoles > 1 mm diam; inflorescences [male] and [female] solitary, axillary, the slender peduncle only 0.5-2 cm long, the spike short or capitate, the 3-8 flowers crowded on an axis 2-6 mm long, the bracts very small, deflexed; flower sepals at full anthesis rotate (conni-vent both before and afterward), connate through ± 1 mm, the outer 3 broadly elliptic 6.5-8 mm long, 3.5-5.2 mm wide, the inner 3 slightly shorter and broader, 6-7.5 mm long, 4-5.5 mm wide, all papillose around the distal margins; petals united with the sepals through ± 1.5 mm, fiee from each other but closely contiguous, crowded into a disc ± 5 mm diam, all camose and transversely ridged below the middle but the ridge not strongly projecting inward toward the androecium, all ± 2.2 mm long, the 3 larger broadly flabellate, nearly 3 mm wide across the leading edge, the 3 narrower ones deltate, 2 mm wide, all contracted into a triangular or linguiform, incurved appendage 1-1.3 mm long; androecium glabrous, the 3 stamens subsessile, ±1.2 mm long, the thecae lateral and introrse along the distal margins of the rhombic-dilated connective, widely separated at base, convergent distally but separated by a minute conical point; flower conspicuously smaller than the [male], the sepals 3-3.5 mm long, 2.1-2.4 mm wide; petals ± 2.7 mm long, adnate to the sepals through 0.7 mm, the blade broadly cuneate, 2.2 mm long, ± 1 mm wide, subtruncate, the appendage ± 0.5 mm long; drupe ± 18 mm long, 16 mm diam, the exocarp (dry) coriaceous, black, the pulp thin, the endocarp 16 mm long, 10 mm wide, broadly oval in dorsoventral view, straight, broadly winged, the lateral and marginal wings 2.5-3 mm wide, in section ± 0.3 mm wide at base, the testa thin, 0.15 mm thick, the seed-cavity in section 4 mm wide, 1.7 mm high.
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Discussion
Type. “Ost-Peru: Mittlerer Ucayali, Yarina Cocha ... 28 November 1923 (Tessmann n. 3385 . . .)” (holotype, formerly at B, destroyed; isotype NY! isotype at G represented by Field Neg. 27,512 + fragments, F! isotype in herb. Bassler. [Iquitos] represented by photograph at NY!). In structure of the staminate flower and of the drupe D. tessmannii is essentially identical with D. ernstii sens. lat.; the two species are obviously close relatives. The short, few-flowered spikes of both sexes are the strongest differential character of D. tessmannii, but the leaves are smaller than in most forms of D. ernstii and being quite glabrous provide an immediate means of separating it from the sympatric D. ernstii var. uncinulata. The small size of the pistillate as compared with the staminate flower is another notable feature of D. tessmannii not yet matched in sect. Sarco Stephana; flowers of both sexes are, of course, not known in all the species and the disparity may be commoner than it now appears. All forms of D. ernstii are believed to have pleomorphic leaves on the sterile shoots, markedly different in shape from the ovate-cordate type associated with the flowers and often curiously mottled. No sign of such foliar pleomorphy appears in the specimens of D. tessmannii now available.
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Distribution
Forest clearings and second-growth woodland of the upper Amazonian Hylaea, below 200 m, found in flower July—November, in ripe fruit in July and December, apparently local, known only from the valleys of ríos Ucayali (vicinity of Pucallpa) and Huallaga (near Yurimaguas), Loreto, Peru. PERU. Loreto: Yarina Cocha, Tessmann 3385, flor, [male] & [female] (cited above, type-collection), J. Zavortink 3038 flor. [male] (LA), 3039, flor. [female] + ripe fruit (LA); near Yurimaguas, Ll. Williams 4654,
Peru South America|