Buchenavia megalophylla

Content

Description

Tree 2.5-45 m. Leaves chartaceous, obovate to oblanceolate, 14-36 x 5-14 cm, apex rounded and apiculate to shortly and abruptly acuminate or cuspidate, base narrowly cuneate and scarcely decurrent, glabrous except often puberulous on midvein and secondary veins especially below; domatia absent or shallow except for dense hair-tufts; venation as in B. macrophylla; petiole 1.2-2.3 cm long, puberulous, biglandular. Inflorescence 9-16 cm long, spicate; peduncle 2-3 cm, densely pubescent; rhachis 7-13 cm, densely pubescent. Flowers 3-4.5 mm long; lower hypanthium 2-3 mm long, densely pubescent on ovary-bearing part, with less pubescent rather thick neck much less than half total length; upper hypanthium 1-2 x 2.5-4 mm, glabrous or nearly so. Fruit densely fulvous-tomentellous, 1.8-4.7 x 1-1.4 cm, elliptic in side view, strongly 5-ridged, apex abruptly narrowed to usually strongly curved beak of 1-2 cm long, base rounded or obtuse and abruptly narrowedto 0.2-0.7 cm long pseudostipe.

Distribution

Guianas endemic

Endemic to the Guianas; 20 specimens have been seen (GU: 16; SU: 1; FG: 3).

Common Name

English (French Guiana): alimi hudu, ingitabaka, kwatabobi

Phenology

Flowering ; fruiting .

Notes

The fruits of this species are quite unmistakable, but flowering or sterile material is impossible to distinguish with certainty from some specimens of B. reticulata or B. macrophylla. The leaves of B. macrophylla are much more variable than those of B. megalophylla, often being smaller and often with rather gradually tapered apices, but they can mimic the very large abruptly narrowed leaves of the latter. These two species are possibly allopatric. All undoubted (i.e. fruiting) material of B. megalophylla comes from Guyana, but B. macrophylla is not known from Guyana or Suriname, although it definitely occurs in French Guiana. There is flowering material probably referable to B. megalophylla from Suriname and French Guiana. Sterile material from French Guiana must remain undetermined, although most of it closely resembles typical B. megalophylla, with broadly 'shouldered' leaves.
Van Heurck & Müller Arg. stated that the type was sent as Pamea guianensis to Mlle. H. Reichenbach, probably from Demerara. Specimens (s.n.) coll. Parker, 1821-1824, and labelled [wrongly] Pamea guianensis Aubl. are almost certainly duplicates (probable isotypes CGE, G, K; photographs F, NY, US).