Vismia confertiflora Spruce ex Rchb.
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Authority
Ewan, Joseph A. 1962. Synopsis of the South American species of Vismia (Guttiferae). Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 35: 293-377. pls. 1-5.
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Family
Clusiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type: Vicinity of Santarem, Pará, Brazil, September 1850, Spruce 1087 (isotypes BM, CGE, E, FI, G, K, NY, OXF, TCD, W).
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Description
Description - [No description provided.]
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Discussion
The sepals of Vismia confertiflora have a broad hyaline flange contrasting sharply with the body of the sepal. The leaves have a silvery, almost lepidote appearance from the very thin puberulence, distinguishing it from V. obtusa, of the same region, which is wholly glabrous, and punctate beneath with scattered raised black dots. Both species may have at times short-acuminate leaf-tips. Vismia confertiflora is a tree of dense bushy habit about 10 to 15 meters high, with gummy orange-red juice, and yellow petals. The fruit is evidently green when ripe, to judge from the collectors' fieldnotes. V. tomentosa, another species of the upper Amazon basin, agrees with V. confertiflora in its narrowly obovate, finely vittate, yellow petals, but the pubescence of the sepals in V. tomentosa is truly a tomentum, being denser, more felt-like, than the close fine puberulence of V. confertiflora. Both have the floral leaves exceeding the panicles, long-petiolate, broadly ovate principal leaves, prominent flanges on the evittate sepals in flower, and strongly spreading to reflexed sepals in fruit. The fruit in V. confertiflora, however, is green at maturity and in V. tomentosa dark brown. There is some evidence that the habitats contrast to some degree, V. confertiflora being a spreading tree of the dense upland forests and V. tomentosa a taller, more ponderous species of the lowland "high forests." The collections studied of V. confertiflora from British Guiana show smaller leaves and not so prominent hyaline margins of the sepals. In British Guiana the species is a shrub or small tree about four meters high. V. gracilis, of Ecuador, represents a narrow-leaved phase which may prove distinct when better known.