Senna pentagonia var. pentagonia

Title

Senna pentagonia var. pentagonia

Authors

Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Senna pentagonia (Mill.) H.S.Irwin & Barneby var. pentagonia

Description

70a. Senna pentagonia (P. Miller) Irwin & Barneby var. pentagonia. Cassia pentagonia P. Miller, 1768, l.c., sens. str.—"Senna spuria . . . siliqua pentagona alata. Houston MSS . . . sent me from Campeachy by the late Dr. Houston."—Holotypus, so ticketed in Houston’s hand and annotated by Solander, BM! = BH Neg. 5164 = NY Neg. 159. The pod had been illustrated earlier by P. Miller, Fig. t. 82, fig. c. 1760, but there mistakenly associated with a plant of C. bicapsularis. Erroneously equated by Martyn, Gard. Diet. ed. 9, and by Britton & Rose, 1930, p. 242 (sub Emelista) with C. tora; restored by Bentham, 1870, p. 114, t. 34, fig. II; 1871, p. 535.

Fruiting pedicels 14-22 mm; otherwise as given in key.—Collections: 13. Disturbed thickets, weedy grassland, roadsides, ditches and lake shores, not known to occur on limestone and certainly not confined to calcareous soils, mostly below 750 but ascending in Chiapas to 1270, in Honduras to 1200 m, rare and scatterd: s. Mexico (Gulf slope in Chiapas and Campeche; Pacific slope in w. Guerrero), and Honduras (Morazan); s.-e. Brazil (w. Bahia to s.-centr. and s.-e. Minas Gerais and e. S. Paulo).—Fl. in N. America IX-X, in Brazil III—IV.