Albizia multiflora

Title

Albizia multiflora

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Albizia multiflora (Kunth) Barneby & J.W.Grimes

Description

17. Albizia multiflora (Kunth) Barneby & Grimes, comb. nov. Acacia multiflora Kunth in Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. Sp. 6(qu): 277. 1824. — Typus sub var. multiflora infra indicatur.

Slender, amply leafy trees 5-15 m, with smooth glabrous, in second year vertically striped branchlets deeply sulcate under the buttressed lf-pedestals, the lf- and inflorescence-axes puberulent with incurved hairs <0.15 mm, the broad plane lfts bicolored, dull olivaceous above, pallid beneath, the lfts minutely inconspicuously puberulent on both faces or glabrescent on upper one, the simple efoliate pseudoracemes of small greenish white capitula arising singly or geminate from coeval lf-axils, the firm broad-linear pods maturing at defoliate nodes below the homotinous lvs. Stipules either obsolete or very early caducous, none seen. Lf-formula ii-iv(or v, fide Schery)/5- 11; lf-stks 7.5-18 cm, the petiole including wrinkled pulvinus (3-)4.5-9 cm, at middle 0.9-1.5 mm diam, the ventral groove continuous between often not quite opposite pinna-pairs, the one or the longest interpinnal segment (2-)2.5-4 cm; a sessile glabrous cupular nectary well below midpetiole or contiguous to lf- pulvinus 0.7—1.5 mm diam, <0.3 mm tall or sometimes almost immersed in petiolar groove, a smaller nectary at tip of each pinna-rachis; pinnae little graduated, the rachis of longer ones 6-11.5 cm, the longer interfoliolar segments 7-18 mm; pulvinules 0.5-1.1 x 5-0.9 mm; lfts a little decrescent near base of rachis, otherwise subequilong, the blade oblong or semi-ovate from inequilaterally rounded or shallowly semicordate base, broadly obtuse but sometimes also minutely bluntly apiculate, the longest 17-37 x 6-17 mm; venation of 5-6 primary nerves from pulvinule, the almost straight midrib forwardly displaced to divide blade ±1:2—2.5, giving rise on anterior side to 2-4 and on the posterior to 1-2 major secondary venules, the inner posterior nerve incurved-ascending well beyond midblade, the outer ones progressively shorter, the tertiary venules few and random, the whole venation finely prominulous dorsally, little elevated but pallidly discolored above. Primary axis of pseudoracemes 4—19 cm; longer peduncles 5-11 mm; capitula without filaments 6-8 mm diam, the receptacle, including short terminal pedestal, not over 1.5 mm; bracts ovate or spatulate 0.4-0.7 mm, persistent; flowers sessile, dimorphic, externally either microscopically puberulent overall or only so near orifice of calyx and at tip of corolla-lobes, the perianth of all 5-merous or that of one or more distal ones 6-merous; PERIPHERAL FLS: calyx campanulate 1-1.8 x 0.7-1.4 mm, the depressed-deltate teeth 0.1-0.25 mm; corolla 2.8-4.2 mm, the lobes 0.9-1.2 x 0.7-1 mm; androecium 24-30-merous, 6.5-9 mm, the stemonozone ±0.5 mm, the tube 1.4-3.4 mm; ovary glabrous, subsymmetrically conic at apex; style as long as or a trifle longer than stamens, not dilated at apex; TERMINAL FL: no longer or only a little longer but stouter than peripheral ones, the calyx 0.8-1.6 x 11.8 mm, the corolla 2.5-4.1 mm, its lobes 1.1-1.6 mm; androecium 26-38(-40)-merous, the tube 2.5-3.8 mm, the free part of filaments dilated at base. Pods in profile broad-linear, straight or almost so, 11-17 x 1.6-2.4 cm, abruptly contracted at base into a short necklike stipe and abruptly apiculate, compressed but plump and facially corrugate by shallow transverse interseminal sulci, the pithy-ligneous, glabrous, purplish-castaneous, scarcely venulose [but reportedly resinous] valves framed by almost straight (except where ovules abort) blunt sutures, at maturity 2-2.5 mm thick; dehiscence none or greatly delayed and incipiently lomentiform, the fruit (when dry) under slight pressure breaking through the interseminal grooves and through both sutures into closed, 1- seeded segments; seeds (few seen) transverse on filiform funicle, ±9.5-10 x 5.5-7 x 3 mm, the complete pleurogram ±6-6.5 x 3.5 mm.

Following Bentham, who for lack of the telltale fruits confused the relatively local A. multiflora of the Pacific slope with the much more widely dispersed Amazonian A. subdimidiata, botanists have universally misapplied the epithet multiflora. The fruit of genuine A. multiflora, well described by A. Gentry (1988, l. c., as Pithecellobium paucipinnatum), is a plumply compressed, pithy-lignescent pod more than 1.5 cm wide that has almost straight sutural margins and only cryptically segmented valves, whereas that of A. subdimidiata is leathery piano-compressed and only 8-14 mm wide, with margins undulately pinched between seeds and transverse fracture lines externally evident at an early stage of maturity. The prolonged eclipse of genuine A. multiflora in the shadow if A. subdimidiata induced the superfluous description of Pithecolobium weberbaueri and Albizia paucipinnata.