Psidium ovatifolium O.Berg
-
Authority
Maguire, Bassett. 1969. The botany of the Guayana Highland-part VIII. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 18: 1-290.
-
Family
Myrtaceae
-
Scientific Name
-
Discussion
This species is easily recognized by the large, ovate or lance-ovate leaves, rather long petioles, the glabrous or nearly glabrous herbage and flowers, large buds with open lobed calyx, and often 3-flowered peduncles. A completely glabrous form from British Guiana has been described as Psidium ovatifolium var glabrum Amsh. (Bull. Torrey Club 75: 538. 1948); specimens of this form are scarcely distinguishable from P densicomum except that the leaves are broadly ovate and the peduncles are usually 3-flowered.
The type. Spruce 826 ["Psidium 2"], from Santarem, Para, is a young flowering specimen which I saw at Munich in 1954 (cf Field Mus. neg. 19719). Isotypes are cited below.
According to Wihiams and Killip, this is the most characteristic tree along the banks of the Rio Paragua, forming dense masses, the lower part of the plant often in water. The species is known only from the specimens cited below; presumably it occurs along many rivers from eastern Venezuela to eastern Brazil.
A sheet at N Y (British Guiana, Rupununi R., in savanna, Sep 1948 (fl), W B 110 (Forest Dept. 5649), has the calyx and 3-flowered peduncles of Psidium ovatifolium, is glabrous (but the coroha puberulent!); petioles are only 1-3 m m long, and leaves ehiptic not ovate, and dotted beneath. In some respects this seems to be intermediate between P. ovatifolium and P. aquaticum; conceivably it could be a hybrid between these species.
-
Distribution
Venezuela South America| Guyana South America| Brazil South America|