Mimosa tenuiflora

  • Title

    Mimosa tenuiflora

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Mimosa tenuiflora (Willd.) Poir.

  • Description

    69. Mimosa tenuiflora (Willdenow) Poiret, Encycl. Suppl. 1: 82. 1810, based on Acacia tenuiflora Willdenow, Sp. pl. 4: 1088. 1806.— "Habitat ad Caracas, Bredemeyer"—Holotypus, Bredemeyer 20 in B-WILLD 19189, seen in microform!—Non M. tenuiflora Bentham, 1846.

    Acacia hostilis Martius in Spix & Martius, Reise Bras. 1:555. 1823.—".. . im Algadisso [on rio S. Francisco near 15°S]."—Holotypus, Martius 1856, collected IX. 1818 (fr), M! = FNeg. 6185 = IPA Neg. 1348.-Mimosa hostilis (Martius) Bentham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London 30: 415. 1875 & in Martius, Fl. bras. 15(2): 359. 1876. M. apodocarpa var. hostilis (Martius) Hassler, Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 9: 1. 1910.

    Mimosa cabrera Karsten, Fl. Columb. 2: 63, t. 132. 1863. —"Habitat planities calidas siccas septentrionales Columbiae... .’’—Holotypus, Karsten s. n. from "Coro, Sta. Marta," W!

    M. nigra J. Huber, Bull. Herb. Boissier II, 1: 303. 1901.—"[Brazil, Ceará:] Dépressions humides dans le Sertão, pres Quixadá (309)."—Holotypus, collected in Oct 1897, labeled ‘M. acutifolia var. nigra’, MG!

    M. limana Rizzini, Leandra 4-5: 14, est. 12. 1974.— "Vivit in caatinga ad Senhor de Bomfim, Bahia, coll. D. P. Lima 13.147. (16-V-73). Holotypus in RB no. 148.275."—Holotypus, RB!

    M. maracasensis Harms in herb., nom. ined.—Maracás, Bahia, IX. 1906, Ule 8956, G! HAMB! K!

    M. cabrera sensu Bentham, 1876: 416.

    M. tenuiflora sensu Lewis, 1987, fig. 8E (pod).

    Often vulnerantly prickly, microphyllidious arborescent shrubs and trees commonly 2-5 m with stiff knotty fuscous, livid or blackish branches erratically armed with stout subhorizontal castaneous or livid aculei 2-10 mm arising from a broad swollen pediment, the sometimes unarmed homotinous branchlets and foliage puberulent and ± resinous or viscid with minute soft hairs 0.1-0.3 mm and mostly sessile or semiimmersed, but on some stems partly short-stipitate glands ±0.05-0.1 mm diam., the plane firm lfts subconcolorous, dull olivaceous often brunescent when dry, facially either glabrous or finely puberulent, dorsally sprinkled with semiimmersed glands, often minutely ciliolate, the fl-spikes from axils of fully expanded or already fallen lvs, the inflorescence in consequence either immersed in foliage or on defoliate annotinous branchlets. Stipules deltate, triangular or triangular-acuminate (0.5-) 1-2.5 mm, deciduous. Leaf-stalks (2-)2.5-6.5(-9.5) cm, the petiole including livid pulvinus 7-14 mm, at middle 0.5-0.9 mm diam., the longer interpinnal segments (3-)4-9(-l 1) mm, the ventral groove interrupted between pinnae by a spicule 0.3-1 mm; pinnae in Brazil 4-7-. n.-ward to 11-jug., decrescent proximally, the rachis of longer ones (2-)2.5-5 (-5.5) cm, the longer interfoliolar segments 1-2.2 (-2.5) mm; lfts of longer pinnae (15-) 17-33 (-40)-jug., decrescent only near ends of rachis, in outline linear-oblong obtuse or sometimes minutely apiculate, the longer ones (3.5-)4-8 x 1-1.6 mm, 2.5-5 times as long as wide, faintly 1 (-2)- nerved dorsally, the upper face veinless. Spikes solitary or sometimes geminate, subsessile, in young bud appearing as dense cylindric aments ±5-10 x 2-3 mm, the axis becoming 4-10 cm, loosely spicate; bracts cuneate-spatulate 0.6-1 mm, at dilated apex hooded and dorsally puberulent; fl-buds oblong-obovoid, minutely glandular-papillate distally; flowers 4-merous 8-androus, some often staminate; calyx turbinate-campanulate 0.75-1 mm, 4-angulate by prominent ribs leading to the very short, cucullately incurved, dorsally puberulent lobes; corolla turbinate 2.1-3.1 mm, whitish or greenish-white, the ovate, apically callous and incurved lobes 0.7-1.6 mm; filaments white, free, the longer ones exserted 3-4 mm; ovary gray-pilosulous laterally and glandular-verruculose overall. Pods narrowly oblong or oblong-elliptic in profile, when well fertilized 25-50 x 6-8.5 mm, 4-6-seeded, the body cuneately contracted at base into a slender stipe 2-4 mm, the shallowly undulate replum 0.3-0.5 mm wide, the thin green valves becoming stramineous or brownish, bullately elevated over each seed, viscid with both sessile and short-stipitate glands, when ripe separating from replum and breaking up into articles ± 6-8 mm long; seeds in broad profile obovate-subcordate ±4-4.5 x 3.3 mm, the testa dull brown.

    An element of brush-woodland communities subject to periodic or seasonal drought, in Brazil mostly in caatinga but entering cerrado and occasional on sandstone outcrops, in places forming weedy thickets in pastures and along highways, in n. South America in semideciduous forest and chaparral, mostly below 500 m but in Bahia attaining 750(-900) m, discontinuously dispersed in tropical North and South America: n.-e. Brazil in lat. 4-15°S, locally abundant from Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte to s.-e. Piauí and interior Bahia, there reaching the Contas valley e. of the central highlands and in the S. Francisco basin extending to Espigão Mestre and the frontier of Minas Gerais, perhaps disjunct (pending confirmation) in far e. S. Paulo (Campos da Bocaina, leg. Glaziou, P!), interior Venezuela (Zulia, Cojedes, Guárico, Lara, Aragua) and the Guajira Peninsula in n.-e. Colombia; arid valleys of the Pacific slope in El Salvador and Honduras; Pacific lowlands of Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. —Fl. in Brazil irregularly throughout the year, in Venezuela mostly X-II(-V). — Carbonal, cabrera, cují cabrera (Venezuela-Colombia); jurema, j. preta (Brazil); tepescohuite (Mexico). Map 5.

    A syndrome of viscid foliage, strongly 4-ribbed calyx with incurved lobes, and a stipitate thin-walled pod charged with mixed sessile and stipitate glands, the valves bullately distended over the seeds, neatly defines this widespread species. The Brazilian populations, which were ascribed by Bentham to an endemic species, M. hostilis, differ only very slightly from those of Venezuela by leaves on the average a little shorter and composed of fewer (mostly 4-7, not 6-11) pairs of pinnae; but some individual plants from these widely disjunct areas are nevertheless identical in foliage. Stipitate glands are perhaps more frequent north than south of the Equator, but are imperfectly correlated with dispersal.

    In recent years tepescohuite has received sensational publicity as a miracle drug in the treatment of bums. It is said to be harvested in Chiapas in great quantities.