Cassiinae pt 1 NY-Botanical_gardens_Vol. 35_1 - Copy.pdf - Antbase

114 MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN [VOL. 35
1850,' K (hb. Benth.)!—Equated by Bentham, 1871, p. 521, with C. fruticosa sensu Benth.
{—C. bacillaris vera).
Cassia insignis N. E. Brown, Trans. Linn. Soc. II, Bot. 6: 24. 1901.—"On the upper slopes of
Mount Roraima, [British Guiana], McConneU & Quelch, 23."—Holotypus, collected by J.
J. Quelch & F. McConneU in autumn 1894 (fl), K! = NY Neg. 1549.
Cassia bacillaris sensu Bentham, 1870, p. 98, t. 31, magna pro parte, exclus. pl. brasil. et syn.
C. puberula; 1871, t. 62, max. pro parte.
Chamaefistula fruticosa sensu Britton & Rose, 1923. p. 235, exclus. typ.
Vesture of lvs and inflorescence appressed or rarely incumbent white or gray­
ish; lfts intricately rericulate on both faces, the smaUer defined areoles 1 mm
diam; funcrional stamens 7, the 3 abaxial long-beaked ones of ± equal size; ovules
122-204.—CoUecrions: 243.
Margins of woods, thickets, often along streams, becoming weedy in disturbed
forest, along hedges, and in abandoned fields or orchards, mosriy below 300 m
but ascending in Venezuela to 1000-1400 m on the Gran Sabana (Bolivar) and
Cordillera Costanera (Distrito Federal and Miranda) and on upper Rio Branco in
BrazU to 1525 m, widely dispersed around the s. circumference ofthe Caribbean
and in n.-e. South America, from s. Nicaragua (Chontales) through Costa Rica
(rare), Panama (common, in almost aU provinces), n. Colombia (n. from lat. 6°N)
and n. Venezuela (uncommon, in Cordillera Costanera, Isla Margarita and Paria
Peninsula) to Trinidad, Tobago and Windward Islands (St. Vincent, Martinique),
thence s. in Venezuela to the Gran Sabana (Bolivar), upper Rio Branco in Brazil
(n. Terr, do Roraima), interior upland and coastal lowland Guyana, and lowland
n. Surinam. Reported from Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands (St. Thomas). Long
cultivated in tropical gardens of Old and New Worlds (Jamaica, Puerto Rico,
Florida, Hawau, Java, East Africa (Brenan, 1967, p. 70, sub. C. fruticosa), and
formerly in European conservatories.—Fl. in Central and n. South America most
abundantly VIII-II, but also, both wild and cultivated, at intervals through the
year.
Except that we emphatically exclude Cassia fruticosa, with consequences to
the dispersal ofthe species, our concept of S. bacillaris and its synonymy differ
but httle from that of Bentham (1871). We reinterpret C. inaequilatera Balb. as
a synonym of S. bacillaris, now known to be common in the foothUls of Sa.
Nevada de Santa Marta, and not equivalent to S. papillosa, the species to which
Bentham tentatively applied the name. Cassia insignis represents a form of S.
bacillaris in which the stipules are dilated into falcately oblanceolate blades that
tend to persist long into the adult life of the associated leaf. In the protologue N.
E. Brown compared C. insignis with C. latifolia, which has stipules ofthe same
type, rather than with C. bacillaris, of which it has aU other attributes. We now
have coUections of S. bacillaris from all sides of the Roraima Plateau, some
closely resembling the typus of C. insignis, but others with narrower or eariy
deciduous stipules, some with strigulose annorinous stems and fohage, and some
with finely pUosulous stems; but these variarions appear independent of one
another.
8b. Senna bacillaris (Linnaeus f.) var. benthamiana (Macbride) Irwin & Barneby,
comb. nov. C. fruticosa var. benthamiana Macbride, Field Mus., Bot.
13(3, part 1): 165. 1943.—"Type, Williams 566.'' Holotypus, collected
on Rio Nanay, prov. Maynas, dpto. Loreto, Peru, 3.V. 1929, F!
Cassia hoffmannseggU Bentham, 1870, p. 104. pro parte, quoad pl. amazon. Spruceanas, exclus.
typ.