Prunus pullei
Content
Description
Small trees, up to 15(-24) m, in higher altitudes usually treelets of some metres or large shrubs, bark brown, usually rough and lenticellate, sometimes grey.
Leaves elliptic to oblong, 2-12 by 1.5-5 cm, base acute to rounded, margins often revolute also when living, apex obtuse, often retuse, stiff-coriaceous, with 5-9 pairs of nerves, distinctly looped and joined near the margin, densely hairy when young and usually still hairy below when mature, basal glands 2(-4), flat.
Stipules narrowly triangular, 2.5-7 by 0.7-1.8 mm, free.
Stamens 15-40, filaments up to 7 mm, glabrous or with some hairs at base, anthers 0.4-1 mm long.
Ovary densely hairy, style up to 5 mm long, sometimes hairy at base.
Fruits subglobular to transversely ellipsoid, 6-11 by 7-11.5 mm, exocarp hairy, shining purplish black when ripe, endocarp glabrous or with some hairs inside, calyx (i.e. remnant of hypanthium) under the fruit 1.5-4 mm diam., but in specimens from high altitudes up to 8 mm diam., Seed with glabrous testa.
Uses
As for other species, there are a few reports (Bowers 843, Pullen 252) of the use of the bark for making men's waist belts.
Notes
Herbarium material has more than doubled since 1965 and it has become clear that the earlier distinction of two varieties (Kalkman, l.c.) cannot be upheld. Leaf and flower characters are not really correlated and intermediates occur frequently. The infraspecific variation of course re-mams. Large leaves (more than 8 cm in length) are only found in lower altitudes (below 3000 m), but there is not a real correlation of leaf size and altitude since small leaves (up to 7 cm long) occur throughout the altitudinal range. The distinctness of the nervation underneath depends much on the size of the leaves: larger leaves often have more prominent nerves. The size of the flowers, i.e., the hypanthium, and correlated with it the size of the fruiting calyx, is variable but a boundary can only arbitrarily be drawn. There is a tendency that larger flowers especially occur in higher altitudes.