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

1982] CASSIINAE—SENNA 237
tiary connecting venules faintly prominulous on one or both faces but not forming
a regular reticulum.
Peduncles 1-2.5 cm; racemes ± 15-30-fld, the axis becoming 4-10 cm; bracts
early deciduous firm ovate acute to narrowly lance-subulate 2.5-4.5 mm; pedicels
at and after fuU anthesis 2.5-4 cm, subtended lateraUy at base by a slenderly
stipitate, narrowly fusiform gland 2-3 mm; fl-buds rusty-puberulent, at least in
lower half, when young, the later-expanding inner sepals glabrous dorsaUy; sepals
obovate-suborbicular very unequal, the outermost (abaxial) one 4-8 mm, the
innermost 10-15 mm; petals and androecium of C. velutina, the abaxial petals
25-32 mm; ovary densely rusty-pilosulous-strigulose; style hnear straight
5-9.5 X 0.3 mm.
Stipe of pod ±3 mm, the hnear straight or decurved body 9-15 x 0.9-1 cm,
piano-compressed, bicarinate by the often undulately constricted sutures, the
stiffly chartaceous livid-castaneous valves scarcely constricted over seeds,
charged lengthwise with a single coarse nerve running parallel to the sutures a
little displaced from center toward abaxial one, the thick but very narrow inter­
seminal septa 3.5-4 mm apart, the seed-locules in consequence broader than long;
seeds (few seen) horizontal to long axis of pod or very obscurely obhque, oblong-
obovoid ±4.6 X 3 mm, the testa smooth brown but not highly lustrous, the areole
oblong-elliptic ±3x1 mm.—Collections: 6.—Fig. 22.
Habitat poorly known, recorded from chapada and disturbed taboleiro thickets,
±300-750 m, known from scattered stations in s.-e. Maranhao, Piaui, Ceara and
Pernambuco, in e. Brazil.—Fl. IX, II, IV, VI, perhaps irregularly following rains.
This well-marked species was independently recognized as new by the late Dr.
D. Andrade-Lima, who did not live to describe it, as we had hoped. The epithet
lechriosperma alludes to the transverse orientation of the seeds, in the context
ofthe genus nothing extraordinary, but hitherto thought impossible for a member
of sect. Prososperma, of which seeds turned downward along a narrow pod are
the diagnostic feature. We interpret the direction taken by the seed within its
locule as merely a function of the pod's width, and feel confident that this species
is a genuine member of ser. Laxiflorae with which it agrees in all details of foliage,
of glands on leaf-stalf and subtending the pedicels, of perianth and androecium,
and especially in the prominent cordhke nerve running the length of the pod's
valves, the hallmark of the Laxiflorae pod.
The eariiest collection of this senna known to us is Gardner 2124 (BM), col­
lected in southern Piaui early in 1839. The specimens, in young flower, are unusual
in having only two or three pairs of leaflets to the leaf, but seem otherwise
a good match for the plants from Pernambuco. We surmise that the Cassia velutina
reported from Ceara by Fernandes & Bezerra (XXIII Cong. Nac. de Bot.,
Belo Horizonte, 1.1977) is actually this species.
Bx. ser. TRIGONELLOIDEAE (Colladon) Irwin & Barneby
Senna sect. Chamaefistula ser. Trigonelloideae (Colladon) Irwin & Barneby, comb.
nov. Cassia sect. Chamaesenna ser. Trigonelloideae DeCandolle ex
Colladon, Hist. Casses 95 (statu categorico haud indicato). 1816;
DeCandoUe, Prod. 2: 493. 1825.—Sp. lectotypica: C. tora Linnaeus
= Senna tora (Linnaeus) Roxburgh.
Cassia sect. Prososperma Vogel, Syn. Gen. Cass. 7, 9, 23. 1837.—Sp. lectotypica (Symon, 196
p. 76): C. tora Linnaeus = Senna tora (Linnaeus) Roxburgh.—Cassia subgen. Senna sect.
Prososperma (Vogel) Bentham in Martius, Fl. Bras. 15(2): 114. 1870. Cassia sect. Prososperma
ser. Torae Bentham, Trans. Linn. Soc. London 27: 535. 1871.