Senna mollissima var. glabrata

  • Title

    Senna mollissima var. glabrata

  • Authors

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Senna mollissima var. glabrata (Benth.) H.S.Irwin & Barneby

  • Description

    200a. Senna mollissima (Willdenow) var. glabrata (Bentham) Irwin & Barneby, comb. nov. Cassia atomaria var. glabrata Bentham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London 27: 548. 1871.-"New Spain, Pavon in herb. Boiss."-Holotypus, "N[ueva] E[spana]: Cassia atomaria. Hb. Pavon.," G (hb. Boiss.)!-Perhaps a typotypus of C. nutans following.

    Cassia nutans Colladon, Hist. Casses 113, t. 4. 1816.-"Classia] sp. nova. Moc[ino] et Sesse pl mex. ined. ic. Hab. in Mexico."-Described from the original plate made from life in Mexico, copied at G for A. P. DeCandolle and recopied to illustrate the protologue of C. nutans.- Lectotypus, Colladon, op. cit. t. 4! presumed typotypi, Hb. S. & M. 1136 (=F Neg. 44230) & 1165 (=F Neg. 44239, 44240), MA!

    Isandrina acapulcana Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23(5): 269. 1930.-"[Mexico:] Vicinity of Acapulco, Guerrero, October, 1894-March, 1895, E. Palmer 478."-Holotypus, NY! = NY Neg. 9389; isotypus, K!

    Isandrina xanthophylla Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23(5): 269. 1930.-"Casillas, Department of Santa Rosa, Guatemala, May, 1893, Heyde & Lux [in J. Donnell Smith] 4471."-Holotypus, NY! = NY Neg. 9391; isotypi, G, K, US!-Cassia xanthophylla (Britton & Rose) Lundell, Phytologia 1: 215. 1937.

    Cassia atomaria sensu Bentham, 1871, p. 548, ex parte, exclus. syn. Humboldt. & Colla. plantisque austro-americanis; Sesse & Mocino, Pl. Nov. Hisp. 59. 1893 & Fl. Mex. 101. 1894 ("Habitat in Apatzingani."), perhaps = C. nutans Collad.; Standley, 1922, p. 410.Characters as given in key to varieties.-Collections: 41.

    Open places and woodland borders in chaparral, tropical deciduous forest and mesic coastal forest, 4-650 m, sometimes persisting along fences and highways, foothills and coastal plain of Pacific Mexico from s. Sinaloa to w. and s.-centr. Oaxaca, in Guerrero and Michoacan sparingly inland to Balsas Depression and in Oaxaca ascending in Sa. Madre to 800 m; apparently disjunct at ±1300 m on the Pacific slope in s.-e. Guatemala (Casillas, dept. Sta. Rosa), but possibly only cultivated.-Fl. V-XII, intermittently later, the fruit ripening slowly and long persistent.-Quiedondilla (hediondilla), mora hedionda (Sinaloa); vainillo, frijolillo (Oaxaca); pods said to be edible when young.

    Somewhat variable in outline of leaflets, the narrow extreme being equivalent to Isandrina acapulcana, not otherwise different. The var. glabrata is notable for the extremely large leaves and greatly elongated, pendulous racemes, the axis of which grows out rapidly, at an early stage elevating the unopened buds in a tapering spike far beyond the expanding and fully expanded flowers.

    The typus of Isandrina xanthophylla consists of branchlets barely coming into anthesis, the only expanded flower being immature and hence atypically small for the species. The plant is unusual in var. glabrata for having only three pairs of leaflets, like Ecuadorian var. mollissima, but the inflorescence, already lengthened into a narrow spike, is typical of var. glabrata. In the protologue I. xanthophylla was distinguished from I. atomaria (=our S. mollissima var. mollissima) simply by the dilutely yellow vesture, a feature actually common in S. mollissima when the foliage is young. Standley & Steyermark (1946, p. 132) have rightly questioned its specific status which deserves, nonetheless, reevaluation when mature flowering and fruiting material can be obtained and the native status in Guatemala established.

    lf our speculation is correct, that the Cassia atomaria of Sesse & Mocino’s manuscripts is the same as that described from the caique as C. nutans, the type- locality of the latter is near Apatzingan, Michoacan, where the variety has been collected in modern times (Leavenworth & Hoogstral 1314, NY).