Havardia pallens

Title

Havardia pallens

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Havardia pallens (Benth.) Britton & Rose

Description

3. Havardia pallens (Bentham) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 42. 1928. Calliandra pallens Bentham, London J. Bot. 5: 102. 1846. — "[Mexico. Hidalgo:] Zimapan, Coulter." — Holotypus, n.v.; isotypus, TCD, seen in photo at NY!. — Pithecellobium pallens (Bentham) Standley, Trop. Woods 34: 39. 1933. — Erroneously referred by Bentham, 1875: 592 to P. albicans.

Pithecolobium brevifolium Bentham in A. Gray, Pl. Wright. 1: 67. 1852. — "[Mexico. Nuevo León:] between Cerralvo and Monterey . . . Wislizenus (No. 362, 355). East of Rinconada and Papagallo; also between Cerralvo and Maria, Gregg." — Lectotypus, Wislizenus, s.n., a packeted fruit accompanied by Bentham’s holographic description, GH!. — Feuilleea brevifolia (Bentham) O. Kuntze, Revis. Gen. Pl. 1: 187. 1891. Zygia brevifolia (Bentham) Sudworth, U.S.D.A. Div. Forest. Bull. 14: 248. 1897. Havardia brevifolia (Bentham) Small, Bull. New York Bot. Gard. 2: 92. 1901.

Acacia nueciana Buckley, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia 1861: 453. 1862. — "[Texas.] Near the Nueces River." — Holotypus, not found. — Equated by Bentham, 1875: 592, on authority of A. Gray, with P. brevifolium.

Havardia nelsonii Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 41. 1928. — "[Mexico.] Between San Geronimo and La Venta, Oaxaca, July 13, 1898, E. W. Nelson 2776!' — Holotypus, US!; clastotypus (fragm.), NY!; isotypus, NY! = NY Neg. 9330. — Pithecollobium nelsonii (Britton & Rose) Standley, Trop. Woods 34: 40. 1933.

Pithecolobium brevifolium sensu Sargent, Silva 3: 135, t. 146. 1892.

Pithecellobium pallens sensu B. L. Turner, Leg. Texas 28. 1959; Isely, 1973: 114; Estrada & Marroquín de la Fuente, 1992: 72.

Microphyllidious trees or bushy treelets 2-9(-12) m, erratically armed at nodes with spinulose or ligneous stipules (on new branchlets often 1 mm or less and strictly ascending, on older branches woody, either ascending or spreading, to 15 mm), the young branchlets and lf- and inflorescence-axes either loosely strigulose or pilosulous with incumbent or spreading, extremely fine whitish hairs to 0.1-0.2 (-0.25) mm, the pallidly matte-olivaceous lvs moderately bicolored, the lfts a little paler beneath than above, either glabrous, or glabrous ciliolate, or finely puberulent on lower or on both faces and often with a tuft of hairs in anterior basal angle of midrib dorsally, the rather small capitula of whitish fls fasciculate by 2-5(-7), the fascicles axillary either to coevally expanded or to hysteranthous lvs along homotinous branchlets, together forming at first efoliate but later leafy pseudoracemes, the axis of most determinate, the branching therefore sympodial, no lateral branchlets reduced to brachybasts. Stipules 0.5-15 mm, when shorter than 2 mm erect, often with stiff burnished tip, when longer spreading widely or subhorizontal and to 3 mm wide near laterally compressed base, the longer ones lignescent and rigid, all straight or almost so, commonly puberulent like the stems but glabrescent distally, the stouter ones long-persistent. Lf-formula (ii—)iii—vi(—vii)/( 10-) 12-21; lf-stks of larger lvs (2.5-)3-7.5(-8.5) cm, the petiole (13—) 15— 32 mm, at middle 0.5-0.7(-0.85) mm diam, the longer interpinnal segments 5-13 mm; petiolar nectary sessile, shallowly cupular thick-rimmed, round or elliptic, 0.5-1.4(-l .9) mm diam, in profile 0.15-0.4 mm tall, variably situated but most commonly below midpetiole, rarely at very base, sometimes a little above midpetiole, sometimes rudimentary, a second similar nectary near first pinna-pair, often very small ones at tip of pinna-rachises, or between 2-5 furthest pairs of lfts; pinnae little graduated, the rachis of penultimate pair 2-5.5(-8) cm, the longer interfoliolar segments 1.2-3.3(-4) mm; lft-pulvinules 0.3-0.7 x 0.2-0.4 mm, not wrinkled; lfts opposite, subequilong except at very ends of rachis, the first pair either very small or commonly represented by a linear paraphyllidium, the blades narrow-oblong or linear from semicordate-auriculate base, very shortly or obscurely depressed-deltate-acuminate, those near midrachis (5—)5.5—10.5(—12) x (1.6-)1.8-3.3(-3.5) mm, (2.5-)2.7—4.1(-4.4) times as long as wide; venation pinnate, the slightly displaced, straight or distally porrect midrib giving rise on each side to 3-5(-6) secondary nerves weakly brochidodrome well within the plane margin, the whole venation immersed on upper face, only the midrib prominulous beneath. Peduncles 7-24(-30) mm; capitula commonly hemispherical but sometimes a little elongate, (8-) 14-21 -fld, the receptacle 2-5(-8) mm; bracts ovate or oblanceolate 0.6-1.2 mm, persistent into anthesis, then dry deciduous; fls sessile, homomorphic, the perianth 5(randomly 6)-merous, the calyx densely silvery-puberulent or -pilosulous externally, the greenish white corolla glabrous up to the lobes, these puberulent overall or commonly only toward apex; calyx shallowly campanulate or hemispherical 1-1.7 (-1.9) x 1-1.5 mm, the ovate or deltate teeth 0.2-0.5 mm; corolla narrowly vase-shaped (3.5-)4-5.3(-6.3) mm, the spreading-recurved lobes (1—) 1.2—2 x 0.6-1.1mm; androecium (28-)30-52-merous, (9-)10.5-14.5mm, the stemonozone 0.4-0.6 mm, the tube (1.5—) 1.7—2.7(—3.6) mm, thickened internally at base into callosities 0.2-0.4 mm; ovary either glabrous or densely minutely puberulent, cuneately contracted at each end, at base into a glabrous stipe 0.9-1.8 mm, the body compressed but plump, not sulcate laterally; style a little exserted from androecium, the stigma poriform. Pods solitary or exceptionally 2 per capitulum, both stipitate and pseudostipitate, the stipe and pseudostipe together 6-16 mm, the body broad-linear straight, abruptly contracted into an erect cusp 2-7 mm, when well fertilized 7-12 x 1.2-1.8(-2) cm, 8-13-seeded, the stiffly papery, when ripe brown, glabrate, closely coarsely cross-venulose valves framed by bluntly 3-carinate (not winged), straight or scarcely undulate sutures 1.2-1.8 mm wide, low-convex (on alternate faces of pod) over each seed, pallid smooth (but not satiny) within, the cavity continuous; seeds transverse at middle of pod on compressed, distally sigmoid funicle, compressed-lentiform, in broad view oblong-elliptic or nearly round 5.3-7 x 4—6 mm, the smooth or finely pitted, scarcely lustrous, dark brown or fuscous testa ±0.1-0.15 mm thick, closely investing the pallid embryo, the pleurogram not quite complete.

In tropical deciduous woodland and thorn-scrub mostly below 450 but attaining 1100-1200 m in desert mountains of the Chihuahua Desert and 1170 m in Chiapas, widespread and common on the coastal plain and foothills of the Gulf of Mexico from S Texas to N Veracruz, inland to NE Chihuahua, E Coahuila, E-centr. Durango and E Nuevo León, apparently disjunct in Pacific lowland Oaxaca, and at the head of the Río Grande basin near 16°N, 92°W in Chiapas (mun. La Trinitaria), Mexico. — Map 46. — Fl. V-VIII. — guajillo (huajillo, -a), tenaza.