Senna viminea (L.) H.S.Irwin & Barneby
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Authors
Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby
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Authority
Irwin, Howard S. & Barneby, Rupert C. 1982. The American Cassiinae. A synoptical revision of Leguminosae tribe Cassieae subtrib Cassiinae in the New World. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 35, part 1: 1-454.
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Family
Caesalpiniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Holotypus, LINN 528.6!-Scolodia viminea (Linnaeus) Rafinesque, Sylva Tell. 128. 1838. Chamaefistula viminea (Linnaeus) Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23(4): 232. 1930.
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Synonyms
Cassia viminea L., Scolodia viminea (L.) Raf., Chamaefistula viminea (L.) Britton & Rose, Cassia melanocarpa Bertero ex DC., Cassia fruticescens Spreng. ex Bertero, Chamaefistula melanocarpa G.Don, Chamaefistula tocotana Rose ex Britton & Killip
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Description
Species Description - Weak diffuse or trailing shrubs with sometimes virgate flowering branches, becoming vinelike or at forest edge sarmentose-arborescent with trunk up to 4 cm diam, at anthesis 3-13 m, with angulate young and subterete ribbed older branchlets, puberulent with fine incumbent or subappressed, on stems rarely subretrorse often lutescent hairs up to 0.1-0.25(-0.3) mm, the foliage strongly bicolored, brownish-olivaceous lustrous and often glabrous or glabrate above, paler and at least thinly puberulent along major veins beneath, the inflorescence thyrsiform-paniculate leafy at base but distally exserted. Stipules erect incurved linear-attenuate 3-8 mm, at base 0.25-0.5 mm wide, early dry caducous. Lvs (below inflorescence, where ± abruptly diminished) 6.5-13 cm; petiole including the discolored wrinkled pulvinus (1-) 1.5-4 cm, at middle 0.5-0.9 mm diam, bluntly carinate dorsally, openly shallowly sulcate ventrally; rachis 5-16 mm, shorter than petiole; glands between the proximal or between both pairs, stipitate, (1.2-) 1.5-3.5 mm tall, the body narrowly lance-fusiform, commonly acute 0.35-0.5 mm diam glabrous; pulvinules 1.5-2.5 mm; distal pair of lfts obliquely ovate- or lance-acuminate 4-8 x (1.4-)2-3.6 cm, 1.6-3.2 times as long as wide, at base rounded on proximal and cuneate on distal side, the margins strongly revolute, the straight or very gently incurved midrib with 8-13 pairs of major camptodrome secondary, connecting tertiary and sometimes in addition finer reticular venulation prominulous on both faces but more sharply so beneath; proximal pair 1/3-2/3 as long, often proportionately wider. Racemes solitary 6-20-fld, at anthesis subcorymbose, the axis including short peduncle (1-)2-5.5 cm; bracts usually lanceolate acute 3-6 x 0.6-2 mm, rarely obovate obtuse cucullate up to 3-4 mm wide, caducous; pedicels (at and after full anthesis) (10-) 12-25 mm; young buds subglobose, glabrous or puberulent; sepals subpetaloid yellow or yellow-edged, little graduated, oblong-obovate or broadly obovate obtuse concave 3.5-5.5 mm imperceptibly nerved; petals (of ser. Bacillares) yellow, puberulent dorsally along and sometimes between veins, very slightly graduated, the longest (abaxial) 13-17.5 mm; androecium functionally 7-merous; filaments either glabrous or puberulent, (1.5-) 1.8-3 mm or one of the 3 abaxial longer than the rest and 3-4 mm; anthers glabrous or minutely puberulent distally, differentiated into 4 median slightly incurved truncate 3-4.3 mm with divaricate 2-porose beak 0.2-0.45 mm and 3 abaxial slightly more incurved 2.6-3.8(-4.2) mm with porrect beak 0.5-0.8 mm; ovary densely strigulose-pilosulous, the short glabrescent style gently incurved but not dilated, 0.35-0.6 mm diam below the minute stigma, the orifice ±0.2-0.25 mm diam; ovules (38-)40-60. Pod (little known) apparently exactly that of C. insularis.—Collections: 38.
Distribution and Ecology - Scrub thickets, hedgerows and coppiced woodland, ascending into montane rainforest in the central mountains, 100-1650 m, widely dispersed over Jamaica; apparently disjunct and highly localized in centr. Costa Rica (San Jose), in Cordillera Oriental in n. Colombia (e. Magdalena and Norte de Santander) and Cordillera Costanera in n. Venezuela (near common boundaries of Aragua, Miranda and Distrito Federal), but the extra-Jamaican populations known only in flower and possibly not conspecific.—Fl. (V-)VII-XII(-III).
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Discussion
Very closely resembling S. quinquangulata except for the short pod in which it mimics the smaller-leaved S. insularis, vicariant on Cuba. On Jamaica the leafstalk may bear a gland between each pair of pulvinules or only between the lower ones. The few Venezuelan and Colombian specimens that, following Bentham, we provisionally accept as S. viminea lack fruits which alone can prove them conspecific; and the same holds true for the one record (Skutch 2980, K, MO, NY) from Costa Rica. All these continental populations have uniglandular leafstalks, and the South American ones in this and general habit closely resemble sympatric S. oxyphylla, from which they seem different only in the straight primary axis of inflorescence and relatively few (not over 60) ovules. The plant from Manaus, Brazil (Spruce 1272) referred by Bentham (1870, p. 100) to Cassia viminea represents the small-leaved local population of S. quinquangulata mentioned under that heading.
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Distribution
San José Costa Rica Central America| Magdalena Colombia South America| Norte de Santander Colombia South America| Aragua Venezuela South America| Miranda Venezuela South America| Distrito Federal Venezuela South America| Jamaica South America|