Senna pendula var. glabrata

  • Title

    Senna pendula var. glabrata

  • Authors

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Senna pendula var. glabrata (Vogel) H.S.Irwin & Barneby

  • Description

    126a. Senna pendula (Willdenow) var. glabrata (Vogel) Irwin & Barneby, comb. nov. Cassia indecora var. [8] glabrata Vogel, Syn. Gen. Cass. 19. 1837, in statu illegit. (subordinated to a species containing an earlier proposal).—"In Brasilia: Sellow legit pr. Ypanema [Sao Paulo]."— Holotypus, †B; neotypus, presumed isotypus, K!

    Cassia dormiens Vellozo, Fl. Flum. 159. 1825 & Ic. 4: t. 67. 1835.—Lectotypus, the cited plate which shows the large fl and biseriate seeds of the var!

    Cassia coluteoides Colladon, Hist. Casses 102, t. 12. 1816.—". . . culta in hortis . . . v.v. sine fl. in h[orto] m[eo] et s.c. in herbario d. Bouchet."—Lectotypus, an old cult, spm dating back to DeCandolle’s years at Montpellier, the stock acquired from Lisbon, MPU!

    Cassia crassisepala Bentham, Linnaea 22: 527. 1849.—. . [in Brasiliae provincia Minarum generalium imprimis prope Caldas collegerat clar. A. Regnell.] 11.76"—Holotypus, Regnell 76 of collection II, K (hb. Benth.)!—Reduced by Bentham, 1870, p. 106 and 1871, p. 525, to C. bicapsularis, sens. lat.

    Cassia bicapsularis (typical) sensu Bentham, 1870, p. 107, majori ex parte; Burkart in Parodi, Encicl. Argentina Agric. y Jard. 1: 465, fig. 464C (optima!). 1959.

    Diffuse or assurgent shrubs, in cerrado commonly 1-3 m, at margin of gallery forest sarmentose to 5 m, commonly glabrous throughout but the hornotinous stems and lf-stalks sometimes pilosulous and the lfts then, or independently, pilosulous dorsally in distal basal angle of midrib, rarely dorsally pilosulous overall; petiolar gland between proximal, occasionally also the second (-fourth) pair of lfts, these usually 4-6, in many populations 4-5, in some 6-7 pairs, the distal pair mostly 2.5-5.5(-6.5) x 0.9-2.3 cm, their secondary camptodrome veins 712 pairs, the intervenium intricately reticulate; longest sepal (9-) 10-14.5(-15.5) mm; longest petal (16-) 18-26 mm; blade of staminodes typically rhombic-orbicular to subquadrate and 1.5-2.7(-3) x (1-) 1.4-2.2 mm, rarely (n.-ward, transient to var. indistincta) oblong-pandurate and 3.6-4 x 1.6-3 mm; 2 long filaments 13-18.5 mm, their anther (7-)7.5-10 x 1.5-2.2 mm, its beak 0.6-1 mm; style 5-8 mm; ovules mostly 70-96, locally up to 132; pod subcylindric ±9-16 x (0.9-)l-1.6 cm; seeds 2-seriate.—Collections: 103.—Fig. 10 (androecium), 12 (pod, seed).

    Cerrado, disturbed cerradao, margin of gallery forest and about granite or sandstone outcrops, mostly 450-1100 m but ascending to campo rupestre at 1320 and locally in Sa. do Espinhaço (Sa. da Piedade) to 2000 m, becoming weedy along roadsides and in disturbed woodland, common and widespread over the Brazilian Planalto from centr. Mato Grosso to s.-centr. Bahia, s. to interior Parana and s.- centr. Paraguay, reappearing locally on restinga and at margin of wet forest in coastal s. Bahia; cultivated in warm temperate United States and locally naturalized in s. peninsular Florida and the Bahamas (Great Abaco).—Fl. in S. America (XI-)I-VI(-VII), the pods maturing slowly and long persisting.—Fedegoso, cassia (Brazil) and pito-muvero (Paraguay), but these used generically for various sennas; caquera (reported by Vellozo for this or a closely allied form) is not confirmed by any modern collector.

    This is the handsome large-flowered, longistylous senna that in southeastern Brazil has passed, along with assorted kindred described hereafter, as typical Cassia bicapsularis, a mistake traceable back to Bentham (1870, p. 106-107); and that latterly formed a substantial part of C. pendula var. pendula sensu Lasseigne (ined.). The original Cassia pendula is here regarded as a small entity endemic to the eastern cordillera in Colombia at points distant over 2500 km to the northwest of var. glabrata, from which it differs in the simpler, non-reticulate venulation of the leaflets and in the broadly cuneiform or inversely deltate staminodes. Except that it may possibly be cultivated on the Atlantic slope in Rio or Guana- bara, var. glabrata is not found along the coast of southeastern Brazil where it is replaced by the closely related, respectively longi- and brevistyled vars. recondita and ambigua, and equally different from it in the compressed pod and uniseriate seeds. A pod entirely similar in compression is the principal diagnostic character also of longistylous var. missionum, which replaces var. pendula vicariantly along the lower Paraguay river in Misiones, Argentina.

    Beyond the intravarietal variation accounted for in our description it should be mentioned that the populations found in wet coastal forest climax and adjoining restinga along the coast of Bahia tend to have relatively ample and thin-textured but nonetheless finely reticulate leaflets. The earliest collection of this form (Luschnath in Martins 715) contributed to the protologue of C. bicapsularis var. tenuifolia, which lectotypification permits us to preserve for a quite different Amazonian variety of the species.