Zygia peckii

  • Title

    Zygia peckii

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Zygia peckii (B.L.Rob.) Britton & Rose

  • Description

    35. Zygia peckii (B. L. Robinson) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 39. 1928. Inga peckii B. L. Robinson, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 49: 502. 1913. — "British Honduras, Prof. Morton E. Peck, n. 673." — Holotypus, GH!; clastotypus (slides + photo), NY!. — Pithecolobium belizense Standley, Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist. 4: 212. 1929; non P. peckii Blake (1917).

    Pithecolobium belizense sensu Standley & Steyermark, 1946: 71.

    Coarsely macrophyllous trees attaining 4-9 m, with gray trunks 1-2 dm dbh, except for minutely puberulent peduncles glabrous throughout, the stiffly papery lfts dark dull brown-olivaceous above, a little paler beneath, the shortly pedunculate capitula of fragrant whitish fls arising in fascicles from knots on trunk and older branches and randomly from annotinous lf-axils immediately below current foliage. Stipules lanceolate or triangular-lanceolate 2—8(—11) mm, striate only when young, soon becoming dry, firmly papery, dorsally smooth, deciduous. Lf-formula 1/1½-2½, the lfts in some plants stabilized at 3 per pinna, in others either 3 or 5; petioles stout 2-7.5 x 1.8-3.5 mm, charged at top with a sessile, buttonlike, plane or small-pored nectary (1.4-) 1.6-2.8 mm diam; rachis of pinnae 4-12 cm, the 1 or the further of 2 interfoliolar segments 3.5-10 cm, the proximal posterior 1ft attached close above pinna-pulvinus; lft-pulvinules in dorsal view 4-7 mm, smooth or obscurely wrinkled; lft-blades ovate-elliptic, elliptic, or broadly lance- elliptic, from inequilaterally cuneate or cuneate-attenuate base, very shortly or obscurely acuminate, the distal pair 12-22 x 4—9 cm, (2-)2.2-3.4 times as long as wide; midrib subcentric, straight or slightly incurved, pinnately 7-11-branched on each side, the primary and the incurved-ascending secondary nerves commonly depressed on upper face and prominulous beneath, the tertiary and reticular venules faint or imperceptible above, finely raised beneath. Capitula 6-12-fld, the peduncle 2-11 mm, the receptacle 1.5-3 mm; bracts lanceolate or oblong-ovate 0.6-1.7 mm, persistent; fls sessile, the (4—)5-merous perianth glabrous, the calyx weakly 5-nerved, the corolla faintly striate; calyx deeply campanulate 2-3.2 x 1.3-1.8 mm, the teeth at most 0.4 mm, often subobsolete; corolla 6.5-8 mm, the ovate lobes 1-1.8 mm; androecium 13-20 mm, 42-50-merous, the tube 7.5-11 mm (exserted 1-3 mm), the stemonozone ±0.7 mm, the intrastaminal nectary 0.4—0.55 mm; ovary substipitate, glabrous. Pods sessile, in profile broad-linear, gently retrofalcate, when well fertilized 9-15 x 2.4-4 cm and 8-11-seeded, the toughly coriaceous or lignescent valves planobiconvex, smooth glabrous, the sutures remotely undulate only where ovules abort, the ventral one elevated as a narrow wing ±1.5-2.5 mm wide; seeds (few seen) oblong-disciform to 25 x 18 mm, uniseriate along the cavity (not imbricate), the papery testa lustrous castaneous, more or less crumpled, pleurogram 0.

    On stream banks and in swamps adjoining mangrove, below 300 m, apparently localized in S Belize (distr. Belize and Toledo), adj. Guatemala (Petén, Alta Verapaz, Izabal), and Mexico (Chiapas, Tabasco). — Map 29. — Fl. I—III; fr. V-VI. — Turtlebone (in Belize, a name applied to several congeners).