Salacia insignis

Content

Description

Liana climbing with clasping branches or tree to 20 m tall, glabrous throughout; branchlets sometimes reddish brown. Petiole 10-16 mm long, 2-4 mm diam.; blades chartaceous, pale green to brownish green when dried, oblong-elliptic, 25-28 x 4-7.5 cm, margins entire or slightly undulate, apex abruptly acuminatewith acumen ca. 10 mm long, base acute and decurrent into the petiole; primary vein prominent on both surfaces, secondary veins 10-14(-18) per side, slightly curved, anastomosing near the margins, sharply prominent below, tertiary veins conspicuously parallel, flattened above, prominulous below. Inflorescences few, solitary or fasciculate, axillary or arising from defoliate branches, paniculate, to 25 cm long, axis straight, slender; peduncle 3-5 cm long; primary branches alternate, short; bracts membranous, oblong, to 1.5 mm long, acute; pedicels very slender, to 9 mm long. Flowers loosely arranged at the end of ultimate branchlets, 6-10 mm diam.; sepals membranous, whitish to greenish yellow, reniform or semiorbicular, 1-1.5 x 2-3.5 mm, rounded at apex, subentire or erosulous, faintly veined; petals yellowish white, yellow or greenish yellow to orange, membranous, obovate-suborbicular, 3.8-4.3 x 3.8-4.3 mm, minutely erosulous, flabellately veined; disk cushion-like, ca. 2 mm diam., ca. 0.3 mm high, gradually flattened toward the base, and covering the petal bases; stamens spreading, filaments ca. 1 mm long, anthers ca. 0.2 x 0.3 mm, dehiscent by transverse, apical, confluent clefts; ovary ca. 1 mm diam., style ca. 0.2 mm long; ovules 2 per locule, collateral-superposed. Fruit globose, to 3 cm diam., pendent, pericarp smooth, lenticellate or rugulose, bluish- or greyish green, turning dull orange at age; seeds orange, embedded in a greenish pulp.

Distribution

Brazilian Amazon present, French Guiana present, Guianas present, Southern America: Peru (Peru present), Suriname present

Suriname, French Guiana, Peru and Brazilian Amazon; over 50 collections studied, 37 from the Guianas (SU: 11; FG: 26).

Phenology

Flowering ; fruiting .

Notes

Salacia insignis and Tonlelea cylindrocarpa are vegetatively hard to distinguish. However, S. insignis differs from T. cylindrocarpa in the number of secondary veins, ca. 14 per side in the former, in the latter only 4-7 per side. The side branches of the inflorescence in T. cylindrocarpa are cymose, whereas in S. insignis they are racemose, bearing small panicles.
A destroyed Berlin specimen, Poiteau s.n. anno 1844 (photo negative nr 13333 in Field herbarium), collected in French Guiana, was labelled Hippocratea aggregata Peyr., synonym of Cuervea kappleriana. The sheet bears an annotation by A.C. Smith (1940) stating that it did ot match Peyritsch's description of H. aggregata. There is no other identification given. In our opinion the photograph clearly represents a specimen of Salacia insignis.