Mapania baccifera
Content
Description
Leaves coriaceous, linear, slightly narrowed towards the conduplicate base, gradually to rather suddenly narrowed upward to the slender, triquetrous, aculeate-scabrous tip, with the midnerve prominent beneath and several rather prominent lateral nerves, the margins finely scabrous to almost smooth and the midnerve scabrous on the lower surface in the upper part, glaucous, up to 1½ m by c. 1½-4 cm;
Inflorescence either consisting of a single spikelet or capitate, with up to 4 spikelets surrounded by a few coriaceous, lanceolate, acute, many-nerved, up to 3 cm long bracts.
Flowers 10-15 mm long;
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Maluku (Maluku present), Biak present, Bume R. near Nabire present, Idenburg R present, Japen present, Morotai present, Mt Carstensz present, Solomons present, W. New Guinea present
Solomons; in Malesia: ?Moluccas (Morotai); W. New Guinea (Bume R. near Nabire, Mt Carstensz, Idenburg R.), Japen, Biak.
Notes
Very insufficiently known. Provisionally I have united all Malesian Mapaniae with succulent yellowish fruits, for the material available at the present is inadequate for critical study. The type collections of M. baccifera, M. papuana, and M. radulosa consist of leaf fragments and a single inflorescence or a few detached ones. In the type of M. baccifera from the Solomons the inflorescence contains 4 overmature spikelets surrounded by some involucral bracts, in the specimens collected in those islands by BRASS and referred to M. baccifera by both UITTIEN and BLAKE the inflorescence is a single spikelet. The type of M. papuana is still more fragmentary than that of M. baccifera. The leaves are c. 2 cm wide, the inflorescence a very young spikelet. In the specimens UITTIEN referred to M. papuana the leaves are much wider and in BRASS 13079 (referred to M. papuana by BLAKE) the inflorescence is apparently compound. The latter collection is very similar to the type of M. radulosa, the original description of which is inaccurate: the leaves are 2 (not 1-1½ cm wide and the involucral bracts 3 (not 8) cm long.