Myrcia tomentosa (Aubl.) DC.

  • Authority

    Maguire, Bassett. 1969. The botany of the Guayana Highland-part VIII. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 18: 1-290.

  • Family

    Myrtaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Myrcia tomentosa (Aubl.) DC.

  • Discussion

    Eugenia tomentosa Aubl., PI. Guiane Fr. 504. pi. 200. 1775.

    Aulomyrcia micrantha Berg, Mart. Fl. Bras. 14(1): 517. 1858

    Berg, who had not seen Aublet's specimens, left this species in Myrcia but described a number of its close relatives under Aulomyrcia; for additional synonymy, see Amshoff (Rec. Trav. Bot. Neerl. 4 2 : 5. 1950; Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 45: 172. 1958). What is probably all one variable species ranges from Panama, northern Venezuela, Trinidad, and the Guianas to southeastern Brazil, but seems not to ascend the Amazon. I have not seen the type of A. ottonis Berg, Linnaea 27: 55. 1855 ("prope urbem Upata prov. Guianae repub. Venezuela, Ed. Otto 992 in herb. Berol."), but apparently it belongs to the same complex.

    The group of Myrcia tomentosa is readily recognizable by the blunt soft leaves with relatively few and prominent lateral veins connected by delicate arching veins distant from the margin; by the soft pale (sometimes almost cottony) pubescence of leaves, branchlets and inflorescence, by the long, divaricate and subracemose branches of the inflorescence, and the small sessile flowers and fruit.

    Amshoff, in the Flora of Suriname, relegated Aulomyrcia rosulans Berg, and A. curat ellae folia (DC.) Berg, to the synonymy of A. tomentosa. Presumably she was correct in this, but as far as I know neither name has been properly typified. Berg seems to have regarded them as primarily Brazilian species (even though each in eluded a Schomburgk collection from British Guiana), and each is based upon a group of collections that with the above exceptions are all Brazilian. One of the syntypes of .^1. rosulans, Schomburgk 732, I have seen at W ; this is a form of Myrcia tomentosa, with leaves pointed, nearly glabrous beneath, and flowers in short dense racemes. One of the syntypes of A. cur at ellae folia, Schomburgk 945, also at W, represents the same species; probably Schomburgk 1246, another syn type of A. curatellaefolia, was a part of the same gathering as no. 945 (for an explanation of the numbering system used by the Schomburgk brothers, see the introduction to this paper).

  • Distribution

    Venezuela South America| Brazil South America| French Guiana South America|