Cassia ixodes

Amply leafy shrubs 5-10 dm, except for the glabrescent upper lf-surface densely viscid- villosulous and -setulose throughout, the foliage when dry darkening but somewhat bicolored, blackish-brown above, tawny and finally reticulate beneath, the inflorescence a complex leafy panicle of shortly exserted and immersed racemes.

Stipules spreading and then deflexed, linear-subulate, 2.5-4 mm, becoming dry and apparently deciduous.

Lvs spreading, 10-14 cm, petiolate; pulvinus scarcely swollen or differentiated, 2-3 mm; petiole 2.2-3.3 cm, 0.9-1.2 mm diam, shallowly sulcate; rachis ±6-8 cm; lfts 5-7 pairs, tilted slightly forward, face upward, on scarcely swollen pulvinules 1-1.4 mm, gradually diminished upward, in outline narrowly ovate- to oblong-elliptic, obtuse to subacute, mucronate by the excurrent midrib, (2-)2.5-4 x 0.8-1.4 cm, at oblique base cordate on proximal and rounded on distal side, the entire margin revolute, the blades firmly chartaceous, above dark brown or blackish, glutinous but dull, when young ± villosulous and setulose but in age glabrescent, beneath very densely brownish-pilosulous and -setulose along all the veins and venules, the midrib and ± 8-12 pairs of subfiliform secondary veins above immersed, beneath slender but sharply prominulous, the connecting tertiary and reticular venation scarcely perceptible above, beneath finely elevated to form shallowly sunken, plane areoles to 0.5 mm diam.

Inflorescence composed of simple and weakly few-branched, leafy-bracteate, 3-12-fld racemes immersed in and finally shortly emergent from foliage, the one or few fls simultaneously expanded standing slightly below the succeeding buds, the axes of individual racemes 3-11 cm, bracts linear, 3.5-5.5 mm, tardily deciduous; pedicels widely ascending, 2-3.7 mm, bracteolate 1.5-7 mm below calyx; bracteoles resembling bracts, 3-3.5 mm, persistent; buds ellipsoid, bluntly callous-apiculate, densely viscid-villosulous and -setulose from base to tip; sepals oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate i 15 x 3-5 mm, firm except for petaloid margins, probably reddish when fresh; petals yellow, at full anthesis narrowly ascending, 4 obovate-flabellate contracted proximally into slender claws over half as long as sepals, to 20-21 x 9-11 mm, the fifth obliquely oblanceolate, coiled; ovary densely setulose; ovules 6-8.

Pod linear-oblong, straight, to 5 x 0.8 cm, the chartaceous glutinous valves densely villosulous and setulose; seed unknown. — Collection: 1.

Cerrado in chapada, on deep red soil without gravel or rock fragments, known only from the type-locality on the headwaters of Rio Arapuaf (— 17° 50' S, 42° 50' W) in e.-centr. Minas Gerais

While the proposition of species based upon unicate specimens is always unsatisfactory, the danger of duplication is aggravated when two related forms, such as C. ixodes and C. adamantina, are both described from single collections. It seems, however, impossible to accommodate either in any formerly described species, while the material, meager though it is, is too diverse to rest easily under one name. In general habit and flower-size the two species are much alike, viscous shrubs with ample, dorsally reticulate leaflets and partly leafy-bracteate panicles of short racemes not or scarcely overtopping the foliage. Collectively they resemble C. gilliesii, but differ in petioled leaves, leaflets decrescent up- and not downward along rachis, and larger flowers. The differences between them are in the foliage and calyx. The leaflets of C. ixodes are 5-7 pairs, in C. adamantina 3-4 pairs, in the first smooth above and brown- pilosulous beneath, in the second rugulosely impressed-veiny above and gray-villosulous beneath. The sepals of C. ixodes are relatively long and narrow, the buds in consequence ellipsoid, unlike the ovoid buds of C. adamantina; and the four similar petals of C. ixodes are contracted into a long slender claw. The type-localities of the two species lie about 85 km apart near the watershed of Rios Jequitinonha and Velhas in central Serra do Espinhaço.

Plants collected in leaf only on the west slope of the Serra in the municipio of Gouveia (Anderson 11535) represent a closely related, perhaps identical form but cannot be identified with certainty until flowers are obtained.