Senna pilifera var. pilifera

  • Title

    Senna pilifera var. pilifera

  • Authors

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Senna pilifera (Vogel) H.S.Irwin & Barneby var. pilifera

  • Description

    63a. Senna pilifera (Vogel) Irwin & Barneby var. pilifera. Cassia pilifera Vogel, l.c. & Linnaea 11: 668, descr. ampliat. 1837.—"In Brasilia: Sellow leg."—Holotypus, †B = F Neg. 1730; neoholotypus, former isotypus, K! = NY Neg. 1457; isotypi FI (hb. Webb.), G, LE, W!—Emelista pilifera (Vogel) Pittier, J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 19: 176. 1929, nom. sub- nud.

    Cassia pilifera fma. sericea Chodat & Hassler, Bull. Herb. Boiss. II, 4: 692. 1904.—". . . prope Caraguatay, Sept., n. 3266; in campis Cordillera de Altos, Jan., n. 3736; in campo Arroyo Primero, Febr., n. 8434."—Lectoholotypus, Hassler 3266, G! isotypi, G, K, W!

    Cassia pilifera fma. pilosa Chodat & Hassler, l.c. 1904.—"in campo pr. Igatimi, Dec. n. 5627. [5 paratypi cited]."—Lectoholotypus, Hassler 5627, G!

    Cassia tbra fma. hirsuta Chodat & Hassler, op. cit. 693. 1904.—. . in campo Ipe hu, Serra de Maracayu, Oct., n. 5071."—Holotypus, G! isotypi, K, NY!

    Cassia ignorata Hoehne, Rev. Mus. Paulista 10: 661, pi. 8. 1918.—"Museu Paulista: n. 1409, Alberto Lofgren, Campo Secco, Casa Branca, S. Paulo, 23/IX/89 . . . Horto ‘Oswaldo Cruz’ Butantan, n. 1750, F. C. Hoehne, Tatuhy, Campo de Sta. Cruz, 30/1/17."—Holotypus not seen; duplicate of Mus. Paulista 1409 = Lofgren 159, C!

    Cassia pilifera sensu Bentham, 1870, p. 115 & 1871, p. 536, utroque loc. ex parte, synon. et planta centrali-americana exclus.

    Herbaceous from slender oblique blackish, sometimes rhizomelike rootstock; petioles 1-4 cm, mostly 0.7-1.5 mm diam; distal lfts 2-6.5(-8) x 1-3.5 cm, the tertiary and reticular venulation prominulous usually on both faces, always sharply so beneath; pedicels (1.3-)2-5 cm; style 0.3-0.6 mm diam just below apex, thence narrowed to the oblique stigmatic cavity; locules of pod 6-9 x 2.7-4 mm; areole of seeds 2.5-3 x 0.5-0.75 mm; otherwise as given in key.—Collections: 77.

    Campos, pastures, periodically flooded pastizal or brejo, becoming weedy in trampled and grazed savanna, degraded cerrado, along roadsides and in regenerating woodland, mostly 200-550 m, up to 850 m in Goias and ±1200 m along the Andean piedmont, widely interruptedly dispersed through and around the Paraguai-Parana basin in s.-e. Bolivia (Sta. Cruz), n.-w. and n.-e. Argentina (Jujuy and Salta; Corrientes and Misiones), Paraguay and s.-e. Brazil (s. Mato Grosso, s.-w. Goias, the Triangulo Mineiro and Sao Paulo, there disjunctly e. to long. 47°, s. to centr. Parana and w. Rio Grande do Sul), reported from Uruguay (Bentham, 1871, l.c.).—Fl. X-V(-VI).

    This is the decumbent, large-flowered garbanzo del campo, described by Bur- kart (1952, pp. 166 in clave, 168) as rhizomatous and sometimes for that reason difficult to extirpate from tilled land. It is strikingly different from the erect, non-rhizomatous, small-flowered types which have passed as Cassia pilifera in Mexico and Central America but not always very clearly, at least in the herbarium, from relatively large-flowered forms of var. maritima native to south-central Goias. For commentary see under the next.