Mimosa guilandinae var. cuatrecasasii

  • Title

    Mimosa guilandinae var. cuatrecasasii

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Mimosa guilandinae var. cuatrecasasii (Rudd) Barneby

  • Description

    7e. Mimosa guilandinae (DeCandolle) Barneby var. cuatrecasasii (Rudd) Barneby, stat. nov. M. cuatrecasasii Rudd, Phytologia 33: 236, fig. 1. 1976.—"Type: J. Cuatrecasas 10544, Colombia, Putumayo, ‘selva higrofila del río Putumayo en San Pedro, entre Umbría y Puerto Asís, 300 m alt.,’ 10 Nov. 1940 [in young bud, with broken fruits]." —Holotypus, US 1799170! = NY Neg. 12182; isotypus, COL!; paratypi, Cuatrecasas & Cowan 27217, COL! US (2 sheets)!

    Vines 8-12 m, essentially like var. extensissima except for indumentum of sessile rufous scales 0.1-0.2 mm diam. concealing the hypophyllum of lfts and faces of the pod, this sometimes exceptionally broad in context of the whole sp.; leaf-stalks 8-14 cm, the petiole 5-8 cm, the 1 interpinnal segment 2.5-6 cm; petiolar nectary ± 1-1.5 mm in basal diam., small-pored; pinnae 2-jug., the rachis 1-2.7 cm; lfts of all pinnae 1-jug., the blades very obliquely ovate-elliptic or semicordate, either obtusely deltate or shortly triangular-acuminate at apex, those of distal pinnae 7-13 x 4-7.5 cm, all glabrous lustrous above, 4-nerved from pulvinule; flowers of var. extensissima,; pod either sessile or contracted basally into a stipe to 6 mm, the body 11-17 x 1.8-3.3 cm, the articles 10-15 mm long, ±2-3 times as wide.

    In humid forest, 200-800 m, scattered in intermontane and piedmont valleys of the Andes in lat. 2°N-9°30'S, from upper río Caquetá in Colombia s. to upper ríos Huallaga and Aguaytia in adjoining Huánuco and Loreto, Peru.—Fl. IX- I(-?); fr. XI-?—Tsejentseg (Kayamas); pashaquilla pardo (in Huanuco). Map 4.

    Rudd compared M. cuatrecasasii with M. colombiana and M. extensissima, which she mistakenly thought to lack scalelike trichomes. In fact all three taxa have trichomes of the same type, only they are so much larger and more crowded in M. cuatrecasasii as to impart a coppery metallic gloss (reminiscent of Bauhinia cupreonitens Ducke) to the hypophyllum of the leaflets. Except for the size and density of these scales, vars. cuatrecasasii and extensissima are almost identical, showing the same variation in leaflet-outline and having in common all pinnae bifoliolate. Mimosa colombiana stands well apart from this pair in having strap-shaped stipules, openly cupulate leaf-nectaries, and considerably larger capitula.