Couroupita nicaraguarensis DC.

  • Family

    Lecythidaceae (Magnoliophyta)

  • Scientific Name

    Couroupita nicaraguarensis DC.

  • Primary Citation

    Prodr. (DC.) 3: 294. 1828

  • Description

    Type: Nicaragua. Painting from the Sessé and Moçiño collection, original deposited at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA in the Torner Collection 6331.1456.

    Description: Tree, to 50 m tall, the young branches glabrous. Leaves in terminal clusters of 12-18, old leaf scars noticeably larger and more conspicuous than in other species. Leaves: ; petioles 12-20 mm long, flattened above, not winged, sparsely puberulous; blades oblong-oblanceolate, 11-30 x 4-8.5 cm, thinly coriaceous, glabrous above, glabrous beneath except on veins and in axils of secondary veins, the base cuneate, the margins entire except for numerous minute teeth at vein endings, the apex bluntly acute or shortly and bluntly acuminate. Inflorescences cauliflorous or ramiflorous, racemose, 1-2 branched above base, the rachis puberulous; pedicels 2-8 mm long, puberulous. Flowers 3.5-4.5 cm diam.; calyx-lobes rounded at apex, ca. 5 mm long, sparsely puberulous to glabrescent on exterior, the ciliate margins; petals oblong, 25-40 mm long, glabrous except for a few scattered hairs on margin, white or pale yellow, staminal ring 16 mm wide, the ligule not separated by appendage-free area (i.e., the stamens and staminodes grade into one another and are morphologically similar, the androecium not divided into staminal ring and hood, the zygomorphic prolongation of the androecium called the ligulewith numerous stamens on short filaments, with ca. 600 stamens in ring and ligule, the anthers bright orange, the distal part of ligule yellow; the style minute, not well-differentiated from summit of ovary. Fruits round, ca. 11-13 x 10-15.5 cm, the calycine ring inserted ca. 1 cm below apex, with six slightly protruding remnants of calyx-lobes persisting, the pulp sponge-like when dry. Seeds numerous, lenticular, the seed coat densely hirsute; cotyledons leaf-like.

    Common names: Nicaragua: zapote de mico. Panama: coco, palo paraiso, sapote de mono.

    Distribution: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Northwestern Colombia, and Ecuador

    Ecology: In lowland, moist and wet forests. Also common in gallery forests in northwestern Costa Rica.

    Phenology: Flowers: Nicaragua (Feb, Mar, May, Jun, Aug). Costa Rica (Mar, Apr, Jul). Panama (Apr). Colombia (Jan). Fruits: Nicaragua (Apri, Sep). Colombia (Jan).

    Pollination: The pollinators of this species have not been recorded but are most likely bees that collect sterile pollen from the staminodes of the hood in the same way that they do when they visit Couroupita guianensis. Because there is no stamen and staminode free area between the staminal ring and the hood, the demarcation between fertile and sterile pollen is not as pronounced as it is in C. guianensis. Dr. Chi-Hua Tsou, found that pollen is in monads in the staminal ring of C. nicaraguarensis and that progressively more tetrads appear as the distance from the staminal ring increases. In C. guianensis, the pollen in monads is fertile while that in tetrads is sterile and there is no reason to expect that to be different in this species.

    Dispersal: The fruit of this species is reported to be consumed by Cebus albifrons. (based on label data from B. V. Tamayo 157). It is not known if this species disperses or preys on the seeds but it is likely that the monkeys eat the pulp and disperse the seeds as found in Couroupita guianensis.

    Predation: No observations recorded.

    Field characters: This species is characterized by its flowers with white or pale yellow petals and a darker yellow distal portion of the ligules. The stamens extend from the staminal ring to the end of the ligule with no stamen-free area in between.

    Taxonomic notes: The fruits of all three species of Couroupita are indistinguisable from one another but the flowers are very different. The other two species have a stamen and staminode free area between the staminal ring and the hood called the appendage-free ligule. The number of wedges per fruit are usually six but that number is variable, even under the same tree. In additiion, this species can have or not have a cleft at the apex of the ligule (Observation by X. Cornejo, 2018).

    Conservation: IUCN Red List: Lower Risk/near threatened ver 2.3 (Mitré, M. 1998. Couroupita nicaraguensis. In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. www.iucnredlist.org. Downloaded on 12 March 2014.).

    Etymology: This species is named after the country in which it was first collected.

    Uses: None known.

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

    Acknowledgements: We are grateful to R. Aguilar, R. Carranza, B. E. Hammel, C. Persson, C. M. Potascheff, and E. Zambrano-Caicedo for allowing us to use their images to illustrate the characters of this species.

  • Floras and Monographs

    Couroupita nicaraguarensis DC.: [Article] Mori, S. A. & Prance, Ghillean T. 1990. Lecythidaceae - Part II: The zygomorphic-flowered New World genera (Couroupita, Corythophora, Bertholletia, Couratari, Eschweilera, & Lecythis). With a study of secondary xylem of Neotropical Lecythidaceae by Carl de Zeeuw. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 21: 1-376.