Marlierea lituatinervia (O.Berg) McVaugh
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Authority
Maguire, Bassett. 1969. The botany of the Guayana Highland-part VIII. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 18: 1-290.
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Family
Myrtaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Plant glabrous except for a few flat reddish dibrachiate hairs on the youngest herbage; inflorescence glabrous; branchlets strongly bicarinate in the manner of Marlierea, i.e., the keels terminating distally in the median lines of the leaf-bases; leaves oblong or elliptic-ovate, 4-7 cm long, 2.5-4 cm wide, rounded at both ends, subcordate at base, subsessile; midvein concave-channeled above; lower leaf-surface thickly beset with small convex glands; inflorescence of the Marlierea type, i.e., often consisting of paired panicles from a short axillary branch; panicles rather narrow and few-flowered, 3-7 cm long, subracemose or with few short lateral branches 1-2.5 cm long and 5-9-flowered; flowers sessile and clustered at the tips, sometimes subtended by (abnormally thickened?) pedicels up to 1.5 mm thick, 3 mm long; buds about 2.5 mm long, obovoid, obtuse; hypanthium much prolonged beyond the ovary, the calyx in bud with 4 (-5?) short free lobes, in anthesis splitting irregularly to the margin of the staminal ring or beyond, and the irregular segments more or less deciduous; disk about 2 mm wide; style 4 mm long.
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Discussion
Myrciaria lituatinervia Berg, Linnaea 27: 322. 1856
is one of the species that Berg referred to Myrciaria, group Paniculatae. Most of the members of this group are now generally considered to be species of Myrcia. The plant is not identifiable from the description in the protologue. The type. Rich. Schomburgk 874, from among rocks at an elevation of 1600 ft in British Guiana, was seen by Berg at Berlin, and has presumably been destroyed. I have not been able to locate any duplicates of this number, nor any specimens annotated by Berg. There is, however, a specimen at Kew, numbered by Bentham as 558/887B it is possible that Bentham wrote "877" in error for "874," and that this specimen is a duphcate of the type; for an explanation of the numbering system used by the Schomburgk brothers, see the introduction to this paper. Amshoff studied the Kew specimen in 1947, and thought that it formed a part of the type-collection of Myrciaria lituatinervia. After comparing the specimen with Berg's description, I am inclined to agree that his plant represented the same species as the one at Kew. The only significant discrepancy seems to be that Berg described the branchlets as "compressi," whereas actually they are rather markedly keeled. The following supplementary description is based on the K e w specimen:
In many respects Marlierea lituatinervia is strikingly similar to M . karuaiensis, from which it is, however, easily distingushed by its subcordate leaves. The pedicels in M . karuaiensis are also thickened and apparently fleshy, but not to such an extent as in M . lituatinervia. The keeled branchlets of the latter are the mark of the sect Myrciopsis ]McVaugh, and the presence of dibrachiate hairs, the characteristic branching of the inflorescence and the irregularly splitting calyx all affirm its relationship to Marlierea.
BRITISH GUIANA. Near brooks at Roraima, Schomburgk 558/877B (K, neotype, and probable duphcate of type).