Lecythis minor Jacq.

Description

Author: Scott A. Mori

Type: Tabula 109 in Jacquin (lectotype, designated Mori & Prance, 1990).

Description: Small to medium-sized trees, often branched from base when in open habitats, 5-25 m tall. Twigs gray, glabrous to pubescent. Bark gray, relatively smooth when young, with deep vertical fissures when older. Leaf blades ovate, elliptic, or oblong, 8.5-24.5 x 4.5-10 cm, glabrous, coriaceous, with 12-19 pairs of lateral veins; apex mucronate to acuminate, infrequently acute; base obtuse to rounded, infrequently truncate, narrowly decurrent; margin usually crenulate to serrate, infrequently entire; petiole 5-20 mm long, usually puberulous, infrequently glabrous. Inflorescences racemose, unbranched, or once-branched, terminal or in axils of uppermost leaves, the principal rachis 10-35 cm long, with 10-75 flowers, all rachises pubescent; pedicels jointed, 1-3 mm long below articulation, subtended by an ovate, caducous bract 2-4 x 2-3 mm, with two broadly ovate, caducous bracteoles 3-6 x 3-4 mm inserted just below articulation. Flowers 5-7 cm diam.; calyx with 6, widely to very widely ovate, green lobes, 6-11 x 6-9 mm; petals six, widely obovate or less frequently widely oblong to oblong 27-42 x 14-25 mm, green in bud, usually white, less frequently light yellow at anthesis; hood of androecium once turned inward (see image attached below), 20-23 x 19-25 mm, with well developed, inwardly curved, antherless appendages, the outside of hood white or light yellow, the appendages always light yellow; staminal ring with 300-410 stamens, the filaments 2 mm long, dilated at apex, light yellow, the anthers 0.5-0.7 mm long, yellow; hypanthium usually pubescent, infrequently glabrous; ovary 4-locular, with 3-6 ovules in each locule, the ovules inserted on floor of locule at juncture with septum, the summit of ovary umbonate, the style not well differentiated, 2-4.5 mm long. Fruits cup-like (excluding operculum), globose or turbinate (including operculum), 5-7 x 7-9 cm, the pericarp 7.5-11 mm thick. Seeds fusiform, 2.4-3 x 1.3-2 cm, reddish-brown, with 4-6 light brown longitudinal veins when dried, the testa smooth; funicile cord-like; aril basal, fleshy, white, surrounding funicle. X - 17.

Common names: Colombia: Coco de mono, cocuelo, coquillo, olla de mono, ollita de mono.

Distribution: Lecythis minor ranges from the northern coast of Colombia into the Magdalena and Cauca Valleys and east into the Maracaibo lowlands of Venezuela. It most often occurs in dry, open, somewhat disburbed habatats where it grows as a small, much-branched tree. However, it is also found in moister forests, especially along watercourses, where it forms a handsome, single-trunked tree to 25 meters. This species is cultivated sporadically in Central America and in tropical botanical gardens throughout the world.

Ecology: This species most often occurs in dry, open, somewhat disburbed habatats where it grows as a small, much-branched tree. However, it is also found in moister forests, especially along watercourses, where it forms a handsome, single-trunked tree to 25 meters.

Phenology: Lecythis minor flowers most profusely throughout its native range from Apr to Dec and fruits from Dec to Feb. In the protologue, Jacquin (1763) says that it flowers in Jun and Jul in the viciinity of Cartagena, Colombia. At Summit Garden in the Canal Zone (Panama) , where it is cultivated, this species flowers during the wet season from Apr to Nov.

Pollination: Jackson and Salas (1965) studied the pollination of Lecythis minor (as the synonym L. elliptica) based on a study of cultivated trees grown in Puerto Rico. These trees were grown from seeds imported from Summit Gardens, Panama where they had previously been introduced from Colombia. Fig. 2 of a carpenter bee in the flower leaves little doubt that the species under consideration is L. minor. Flowers that were bagged to exclude all all insects and others bagged to allow small insects such as thrips to enter the flowers did not set fruit. In addition, slides coated with oil and placed downwind to the trees to capture wind-blown pollen did not show any pollen of L. minor on the slides. Observations, indicate that two large insects, the carpenter bee (Xylocopa brasilianorum) and a scoliid wasp (Campsomeris trifasciata), are possible pollinators because their bodies contained pollen of L. minor and pollen was found on the stigmas after the carpenter bees and scoliid wasps departures from the flowers. The authors conclude that L. minor is allogamous, not wind pollinated, and that the most effectiive pollinator was the carpenter bee but that the scoliid wasp they observed also had the potential to affect pollination. Nectars of 16 flowers tested yielded between 23.8 to 31.8% soluble solids, with a mean of 27.8%.

Dispersal: The large, basal aril of this species suggest bat dispersal but this needs to be confirmed.

Predation: No observations recorded.

Field characters: Lecythis minor is characterized by trees of small to medium-sized stature; leaves with crenulate to serrulate margins; flowers with white, infrequently light yellow petals, light yellow to white androecial hoods, and a hood that is expanded at the apex and has appendages that curve inward but do not form a complete coil; mediium-sized fruits with a light brown pericarp; and seeds with a smooth, light brown surface between the major veins (see image below).

Taxonomic notes: The fruits of this species are variable in the position of the calycine ring to such an extent that fruits from the same population could be considered separate species if they were not examined in the context of overall fruit variation. This variation has been described and illustrated with photographs by Dugand (1947, see literature for a PDF of the publication).

Conservation: IUCN Red List: Not on list.

Uses: The seeds of this species are edible, but there have been several reports of hair and fingernail loss if too many are eaten from trees that grow on Selenium rich soils. Jacquin (1763), in the protologue of this species, said that the seeds tasted agreeable to him but half an hour after consuming one he felt nausea, great anxiety, and giddiness. This has been further documented by Dickson (1969) and Kerdel-Vegas (1966) for cultivated trees in Honduras and wild trees in Venezuela, respectively. See PDF's of these publications by searching for these authors in the "Literature" catalog. This species is cultivated sporadically in Central America and in tropical botanical gardens throughout the world.

Etymology: There is no reference to the meaning of the species epithet in the protologue but it probably refers to the relatively modest tree size in the dry vegetation around Cartagena where Jacquin observed the species in its native habitat.

Source: This species page is based on Mori in Mori & Prance, 1990.

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to C. Galdames (SCZ) and M. Nee for allowing us to use their images to illustrate the characters of this species.

Floras and Monographs

Lecythis minor Jacq.: [Article] Prance, Ghillean T. & Mori, S. A. 1979. Lecythidaceae - Part I. The actinomorphic-flowered New World Lecythidaceae (Asteranthos, Gustavia, Grias, Allantoma & Cariniana). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 21: 1-270.

Narratives

Inflorescence and flower morphology and anatomy of Lecythis minor.

Leaf morphology and anatomy of Lecythis minor.

Floral anatomy of Lecythis minor

Map Distribution

View all records of Lecythis minor Jacq.

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