Virola venosa (Benth.) Warb.

Authority

Smith, Albert C. & Wodehouse, R. P. 1938. The American species of Myristicaceae. Brittonia. 2: 393-527. f. 1-9.

Family

Myristicaceae

Scientific Name

Virola venosa (Benth.) Warb.

Description

Species Description - Medium sized tree, up to 20 m. high, the trunk 20 cm. or perhaps more in diameter; branchlets at first sparsely puberulent, soon glabrous and nigrescent; petioles deeply canaliculate, essentially glabrous, 1-2 mm. in diameter, 7-12 mm. long; leaf blades thin coriaceous or chartaceous, elliptic, 11-23 cm. long, 3.5-7 cm. broad (occasionally as small as 9 by 2.5 cm.), attenuate, acute, or obtuse at base, short acuminate or obtusely cuspidate at apex, shining above, sparsely pale puberulent beneath (hairs sessile-stellate, 4-6-branched, about 0.2 mm. in diameter), soon glabrous, the costa plane or shallowly grooved above, prominent beneath, the secondary nerves 12-27 per side, ascending, straight, plane or prominulous above, raised beneath, the veinlets copiously reticulate, prominulous on both surfaces or plane, rarely obscure; staminate inflorescences axillary or subterminal, 2- or 3-times branched, 3-9 cm. long (sometimes bearing mature flowers when much shorter), sometimes broader than long, the peduncle up to 2 cm. long, slightly flattened, with the branchlets and flowers minutely cinereous-puberulent; bracts oblong, 3-8 mm. long, puberulent, soon deciduous; flowers in ultimate clusters of 3-12, the ultimate peduncles distally swollen, the pedicels slender, up to 2 mm. long; perianth thin carnose, 1.8-2.5 mm. long, obscurely glandular-punctate, 3-lobed slightly more than half

Discussion

Myristica venosa Benth. Jour. Bot. & Kew Misc. 5: 3. 1853.

Myristica venosa var. Poeppigii A. DC. in Mart. Fl. Bras. 5 (1): 118. 1860. Firota venosa var. Poeppigii Warb. Nova Acta Acad. Leop.-Carol 68: 225. 1897.

Myristica lancifolia Poepp.; Warb. Nova Acta Acad. Leop.-Carol. 68: 225, as synonym. 1897.

Type locality: Near Manaos, Amazonas, Brazil

In my opinion both Warburg and Ducke have interpreted V. venosa too broadly. As limited to the above specimens, the species is very well marked by its regularly elliptic leaves and straight ascending secondary nerves. Warburg's varieties Pavonis and Martii must certainly be removed from the species, being referable to V. Pavonis and V. carinata respectively. The type of the variety Poeppigii has exactly the same type of leaf as the type of V. venosa but is somewhat smaller throughout. As considerable variation is noted in leaf dimensions of the cited specimens, this feature does not seem of varietal consequence.

Some of the specimens cited by Ducke (6: 257, 258) must be referred to V. carincata. Van Ooststroom (13: 121) also has interpreted V. venosa very broadly, and the specimens which he cites must be placed in V. Melinonii. True V. venosa seems to be limited to the central part of Amazonian Brazil.

Distribution

Amazonian Brazil.

Brazil South America|