Calliandra elegans

  • Title

    Calliandra elegans

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Calliandra elegans Renvoize

  • Description

    95. Calliandra elegans Renvoize, Kew Bull. 36: 77, fig. 3(31), 7B. 1981. — "Brazil, Bahia . . . Serra do rio de Contas, Mato Grosso, Harley et al. 19928." — Holotypus, CEPEC!; isotypi, K!, NY!.

    C. elegans sensu Lewis, 1987: 172.

    Coarsely multifoliolate shrubs to 2-3.5 m tall with stout virgate stems distally few-branched and efoliate, the young stems and the lf- and inflorescence- axes densely but shortly pilosulous-tomentulose with grayish-brownish hairs <0.6 mm (very few short, colored trichomes on calyx or corolla), the firm bicolored plane lfts facially glabrous ciliolate, on upper face lustrous dark olivaceous-brown, paler duller and faintly resin-spotted beneath, the few-fld capitula arising (singly) 2-4 together from efoliate nodes of small, shortly exserted pseudoraceme; phyllotaxy distichous. Stipules (caducous) thinly herbaceous, broadly ovate-flabellate ±3-5 x 2.5-4 mm, not externally venulose. Lf-formula iv-v/30-35; lf-stks 4-5 cm, the petiole 10-17 mm, at middle 1.6-2 mm diam, the longer interpinnal segments 6-17 mm, the ventral groove bridged; pinnae of random lengths, the longer ones ±10-14.5 cm, the longer interfoliolar segments 2.5-3.5 mm; lft-pulvinules 0.6-1.1 x 0.7-0.9 mm; lfts decrescent at each end of rachis, otherwise subequilong, the blades narrowly oblong from shallowly semicordate base, obtuse, nearly straight, the longer ones 10-14 x 3—4 mm, 3-3.7 times as long as wide; midrib displaced to divide blade ±1:2, weakly 2- branched on posterior side above mid-blade, the inner posterior primary nerve incurved-ascending well beyond mid-blade, the 2(-3) outer posterior ones much shorter, the venation bluntly prominulous on both faces. Peduncles 12—18(—20) mm, ebracteate; capitula 4—6-fld, the hemispherical receptacle 1-1.5 x 2-2.5 mm; floral bracts minute ephemeral; cryptopedicels broadly turbinate 0.8 x 1.6 mm; perianth 4-merous, greenish red-tinged, thinly white-pilosulous around top of each cycle, faintly resin-spotted, not papillate; calyx shallowly campanulate 2x2 mm, the depressed-deltate teeth 0.5-0.8 mm; corolla 6.5-7 mm, the unequally cleft lobes 2.1-3.5 mm; androecium 42-54-merous, 2.3-3 cm, the stemonozone 1.2-1.5 mm, the tube 4.5-6 mm, the tassel white; ovary at anthesis glabrous. Pod unknown.

    In rocky campo, 1050-1200 m, known only from the headwaters of rio de Contas at 13°18'-29'S, 41°47'-49'W, in municipios rio de Contas and Abaría, in interior Bahia. — Fl. Ill—IV.

    In overall habit and in number of pinna-pairs C. elegans resembles C. viscidula, but it differs in well-developed petioles, nearly twice as many leaflets (to 30-35, not 14—20, pairs), and much shorter, not striate calyx.

    At the type-locality of C. elegans, between Mato Grosso and rio de Contas, Harley collected also the set of C. lanata that became type of C. sericea Renvoize, and a unicate (Harley 19928A, CEPEC, in bud), which has the foliage of C. elegans but dense pallid cauline indumentum that could be derived from sympatric C. lanata. Another ambiguous unicate (Harley 19822A, CEPEC, in young flower) taken at a point 12 km north-northwest of rio de Contas is suggestive of introgression between C. lanata and C. bahiana, but has not been certainly identified.