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

1982] CASSIINAE—SENNA 161
Weak diffuse or traihng shrubs with somerimes virgate flowering branches,
becoming vinehke or at forest edge sarmentose-arborescent with trunk up to 4
cm diam, at anthesis 3-13 m, with angulate young and subterete ribbed older
branchlets, puberulent with fine incumbent or subappressed, on stems rarely
subretrorse often lutescent hairs up to 0.1-0.25(-0.3) mm, the foliage strongly
bicolored, brownish-ohvaceous lustrous and often glabrous or glabrate above,
paler and at least thinly puberulent along major veins beneath, the inflorescence
thyrsiform-paniculate leafy at base but distally exserted.
Stipules erect incurved hnear-attenuate 3-8 mm, at base 0.25-0.5 mm wide,
early dry caducous.
Lvs (below inflorescence, where ± abruptly diminished) 6.5-13 cm; petiole
including the discolored wrinkled pulvinus (1-) 1.5-4 cm, at middle 0.5-0.9 mm
diam, bluntly carinate dorsally, openly shallowly sulcate ventraUy; rachis 5-16
mm, shorter than petiole; glands between the proximal or between both pairs,
stipitate, (1.2-) 1.5-3.5 mm tall, the body narrowly lance-fusiform, commonly
acute 0.35-0.5 mm diam glabrous; pulvinules 1.5-2.5 mm; distal pair of lfts
obhquely ovate- or lance-acuminate 4-8 x (1.4-)2-3.6 cm, 1.6-3.2 times as long
as wide, at base rounded on proximal and cuneate on distal side, the margins
strongly revolute, the straight or very gently incurved midrib with 8-13 pairs of
major camptodrome secondary, connecting tertiary and sometimes in addition
finer reticular venulation prominulous on both faces but more sharply so beneath;
proximal pair VS-% as long, often proportionately wider.
Racemes solitary 6-20-fld, at anthesis subcorymbose, the axis including short
peduncle (l-)2-5.5 cm; bracts usually lanceolate acute 3-6 x 0.6-2 mm, rarely
obovate obtuse cucuUate up to 3-4 mm wide, caducous; pedicels (at and after
fuU anthesis) (10-) 12-25 mm; young buds subglobose, glabrous or puberulent;
sepals subpetaloid yellow or yellow-edged, httle graduated, oblong-obovate or
broadly obovate obtuse concave 3.5-5.5 mm imperceptibly nerved; petals (of ser.
Bacillares) yellow, puberulent dorsally along and sometimes between veins, very
slightly graduated, the longest (abaxial) 13-17.5 mm; androecium functionally
7-merous; filaments either glabrous or puberulent, (1.5-) 1.8-3 mm or one of the
3 abaxial longer than the rest and 3-4 mm; anthers glabrous or minutely puberulent
distally, differentiated into 4 median slightly incurved truncate 3-4.3 mm
with divaricate 2-porose beak 0.2-0.45 mm and 3 abaxial slightly more incurved
2.6-3.8(-4.2) mm with porrect beak 0.5-0.8 mm; ovary densely strigulose-pUo­
sulous, the short glabrescent style gently incurved but not dilated, 0.35-0.6 mm
diam below the minute stigma, the orifice ±0.2-0.25 mm diam; ovules (38-)40-60.
Pod (little known) apparently exactly that of C. insularis.—CoUections: 38.
Scrub thickets, hedgerows and coppiced woodland, ascending into montane
rainforest in the central mountains, 100-1650 m, widely dispersed over Jamaica;
apparently disjunct and highly locahzed in centr. Costa Rica (San Jose), in Cor­
diUera Oriental in n. Colombia (e. Magdalena and Norte de Santander) and Cor­
diUera Costanera in n. Venezuela (near common boundaries of Aragua, Miranda
and Distrito Federal), but the extra-Jamaican populations known only in flower
and possibly not conspecific.—Fl. (V-)VII-XII(-III).
Very closely resembhng S. quinquangulata except for the short pod in which
it mimics the smaller-leaved S. insularis, vicariant on Cuba. On Jamaica the leaf­
stalk may bear a gland between each pair of pulvinules or only between the lower
ones. The few Venezuelan and Colombian specimens that, foUowing Bentham,
we provisionaUy accept as S. viminea lack fruits which alone can prove them
conspecific; and the same holds true for the one record (Skutch 2980, K, MO,