Eschweilera harmonii S.A.Mori
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Description
Author: Scott A. Mori
Type: COSTA RICA. Puntarenas: Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, Quepos (9°23' N, 84°09' W), primary forest, 20 Apr 1991 (fl), P. Harmon 218 (HOLOTYPE: CR; ISOTYPE, NY).
Description: Canopy or emergent trees, 28 m x 110 cm, with thin buttresses to 2 m tall x 2 m wide, sometimes slightly branched at extremities, the bole cylindrical and straight, the branches at right angles to bole. Bark markedly scalloped, old bark peeling and falling giving mottled appearance to bole. Leaves: petioles 6-12 mm long, drying blackish and contrasting with lighter colored stems and blades; blades 7.5-14 x 3-8 cm, elliptic, reddish-brown punctuations associated with veins abaxially (seen only under magnification), coriaceous, the adaxial surface smooth and shiny in dried specimens, the base acute to obtuse, the margins entire, the apex usually acuminate(damaged apices appearing rounded), entirely glabrous; secondary veins in 9-11 pairs, very slightly raised adaxially, more but still slightly raised abaxially, the tertiary veins finely reticulate, forming small areoles 0.5-1 mm in greatest diam. Inflorescences terminal (suprafoliar) or axillary, usually once branched or less frequently unbranched, the axes sparsely puberulous, darker than light brown twigs, to 12 cm long; pedicel-hypanthium 7-9 mm long, tapered to articulation, not sulcate, puberulous, lenticellate but less so than subtending twigs, Flowers ca. 2.5 cm diam.; calyx with 6 lobes, the lobes ca. 3 x 1.5 mm, horizontally to obliquely oriented at anthesis, plane to concave adaxially, carinate abaxially, the bases not to scarcely imbricate; petals white, ca. 13 x 10 mm, widely obovate, the ones at posterior end of flower somewhat cucullate, the margins entire; androecial hood double coiled, with modified staminodes at apex, pale yellow. Fruits 4.5 cm diam., globose to depressed globose (including operculum), after opercula falls the base is shallowly cup-shaped, the calycine ring prominent, with remnants of sepals persistent as woody ring, the supracalycine zone oriented inward, the infracalycine zone rounded to pedicel, the pericarp exterior olive green with scattered rust-colored lenticels, the operculum nearly flat to convex, the style persisting as small umbo. Seeds (1)2(4) per fruit, ca. 2 cm long, globose but sometimes with one side flattened, the seed coat smooth, reddish-brown, the veins lighter in color; aril lateral, white, fleshy.
Common names: Papallo
Distribution: Known only by a single collection from the Parque Manuel Antonio in Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica.
Ecology: Canopy trees in lowland, moist forests.
Phenology: Flowering from late April to June, but mostly in May; the intensity of flowering varies markedly from one year to the next. The fruits are mature in July and August and the seeds germinate two to three weeks after they reach the soil.
Pollination: The flowers are visited by large bees.
Dispersal: The seeds are dispersed by mammals, especially bats, that seek the pungently odorous (garlic-like) aril. It is most likely that Lecythidaceae with basal (e.g., species of Lecythis) and lateral arils (e.g., many species of Eschweilera) have bats as their primary dispersal agents (Lobova et al., manuscript).
Predation: No observations recorded.
Field characters: See taxonomic notes.
Taxonomic notes: This species has been confused with Eschweilera neei S. A. Mori from which it differs in the relatively thin plank buttresses, the scalloped bark, the carinate sepals, and the larger olive-green fruits.
Conservation: IUCN Red List: Not on list.
Uses: None recorded.
Etymology: This species is named for Patrick Harmon, a high school science teacher at the Country Day School in Costa Rica, who has studied the trees of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica for 20 years. He is the author of Arboles del Parque Nacional de Manuel Antonio. Descriptions and images from his web site (http://www.cds.ed.cr/teachers/harmon/) enabled me to decide that his collection represents a new species; to complete the description of the species, and to allow Bobbi Angell to prepare an illustration that captures all of the features of the plant except the seedling. Features of Lecythidaceae, such as the presence of an aril, are often difficult to describe from herbarium specimens and it is only through the efforts of Patrick Harmon and others like him that we will be able to taxonomically understand difficult genera of Neotropical plants such as Eschweilera.
Source: This species page is based on Hammel et al. 2007 (Monogr. Syst. Bot. Missouri Bot. Gard. 111: 903) and the Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to B. Angell for allowing us to use her line art to illustrate the characters of this species.
- Sorry, no descriptions available for this record.
