Cassia bucherae

  • Title

    Cassia bucherae

  • Authors

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Cassia bucherae (Moldenke) León

  • Description

    3.  Cassia bucherae (Moldenke) Leon in Contrib. Ocas. Mus. Nat. Colegio "De La Salle" 9:11.1950, based on Peiranisia bucherae Moldenke in Bull Torr. Club 68: 675. 1941. — "CUBA — ORIENTE: Moa, Mrs. George Conrad Bucher 78. . — Holotypus, collected in the summer of 1939 (fl), NY!

    Fruticose but of unknown stature, the knotty branchlets, If-stalks and inflorescence strigulose with fine appressed hairs up to 0.2-0.3 mm, nowhere viscid, the adult coriaceous foliage glabrous, lustrous above and dull beneath but scarcely bicolored, the few subterminal racemes immersed or barely exserted.

    Stipules triangular ±0.5 mm caducous.

    Lvs widely spreading-incurved sessile 3.5-6 cm; pulvinus ellipsoid ± 2 mm, wrinkled when dry; rachis 1.5-3 cm, at middle of each segment openly shallow-sulcate, ±0.8-1.2 mm diam; petiolar glands between each pair of lfts sessile suborbicular scutellate 1-1.4 mm diam, coarsely obtuse-margined; lfts 3-4 pairs, ascending from rachis on wrinkled pulvinule 1.2-2 mm, strongly accrescent upward, in outline obovate to elliptic-or lance-obovate openly emarginate 1.5-4 x (0.5-)0.7-1.7 cm, at symmetric base broadly cuneate both sides, the margins entire revolute, the blade from base 3-nerved by the centric straight midrib and on each side one primary vein incurved-ascending to or beyond middle, the midrib beyond middle giving rise to 2-3 pairs of major ascending secondaries and below middle to several fainter ones, the venulation bluntly prominulous beneath, immersed or almost so above.

    Racemes subsessile ± 7-fld, the axis at late anthesis 6-9 mm; bracts and bracteoles deltate ± 1 mm persistent; pedicels ascending ± 2 cm, bracteolate 6-8 mm below calyx; buds globose, thinly strigulose; sepals suborbicular concave, firm with submembranous ciliolate margins, 4-5 mm diam; inner perianth not seen complete, but the longer petals apparently ± 10-11 mm; androecium 10-merous, the stamens homomorphic, the filament 1-1.2 mm, the plumply oblong thecae 1.8-2 mm, the connective muticous, the sutures barbellate; ovary strigulose; style 2.5 mm, incurved but not dilated distally.

    Habitat not recorded, known only from the type-locality on the n. slope of the e. extremity of Cuba (near Moa, prov. Oriente). — Fl in "summer".

    The typus of C. bucherae consists of a single branchlet bearing broken flowers and young forming fruits, but shows attached to the plant the characteristic Lasiorhegma androe- ecium and the large discoid glands common to sect. Apoucouita and some species of sect. Chamaecrista. Superficially the foliage of C. bucherae suggests forms of the Brazilian C. ochnacea or C. hedysaroides, both of subsect. Absus and therefore with glandless petioles. The only Caribbean cassias of subgen. Lasiorhegma with similar glands or similarly glossy foliage are C. caribaea Northrop and close kindred in sect. Chamaecrista, fundamentally different in organization of the inflorescence.