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

1982] CASSIINAE—SENNA 383
76 of collection II, K (hb. Benth.)!—Reduced by Bentham, 1870, p. 106 and 1871, p. 525,
to C. bicapsularis, sens. lat.
Cassia bicapsularis (typical) sensu Bentham, 1870, p. 107, majori ex parte; Burkart in Parodi,
Encicl. Argentina Agric. y Jard. 1: 465, fig. 464C (optima!). 1959.
Diffuse or assurgent shrubs, in cenado commonly 1-3 m, at margin of gallery
forest sarmentose to 5 m, commonly glabrous throughout but the hornotinous
stems and lf-stalks sometimes pUosulous and the hts then, or independently,
pUosulous dorsally in distal basal angle of midrib, rarely dorsally pilosulous overaU;
petiolar gland between proximal, occasionally also the second (-fourth) pair
of lfts, these usually 4-6, in many populations 4-5, in some 6-7 pairs, the distal
pair mostly 2.5-5.5(-6.5) x 0.9-2.3 cm, their secondary camptodrome veins 7-
12 pairs, the intervenium intricately reticulate; longest sepal (9-)10-14.5(-l5.5)
mm; longest petal (16-) 18-26 mm; blade of staminodes typicaUy rhombic-orbic­
ular to subquadrate and 1.5-2.7(-3) x (l-)1.4-2.2 mm, rarely (n.-ward, transient
to var. indistincta) oblong-pandurate and 3.6-4 x 1.6-3 mm; 2 long filaments 13-
18.5 mm, their anther (7-)7.5-l0 x 1.5-2.2 mm, its beak 0.6-1 mm; style 5-8
mm; ovules mostly 70-96, locaUy up to 132; pod subcylindric ±9-16 x (0.9-)l-
1.6 cm; seeds 2-seriate.—Collections: 103.—Fig. 10 (androecium), 12 (pod, seed).
Cerrado, disturbed cerradao, margin of gallery forest and about granite or sand­
stone outcrops, mostly 450-1100 m but ascending to campo rupestre at 1320 and
locaUy in Sa. do Espinhago (Sa. da Piedade) to 2000 m, becoming weedy along
roadsides and in disturbed woodland, common and widespread over the Brazilian
Planalto from centr. Mato Grosso to s.-centr. Bahia, s. to interior Parana and s.centr.
Paraguay, reappearing locally on restinga and at margin of wet forest in
coastal s. Bahia; cultivated in warm temperate United States and locally naturaUzed
in s. peninsular Florida and the Bahamas (Great Abaco).—Fl. in S. America
(XI-)I-VI(-VII), the pods maturing slowly and long persisting.—Fedegoso,
cassia (Brazil) smd pito-muvero (Paraguay), but these used genericahy for various
sennas; caquera (reported by Vellozo for this or a closely alhed form) is not
confirmed by any modern collector.
This is the handsome large-flowered, longistylous senna that in southeastern
Brazil has passed, along with assorted kindred described hereafter, as typical
Cassia bicapsularis, a mistake traceable back to Bentham (1870, p. 106-107); and
that latterly formed a substantial part of C. pendula var. pendula sensu Lasseigne
(ined.). The original Cassia pendula is here regarded as a smaU entity endemic
to the eastern cordillera in Colombia at points distant over 2500 km to the northwest
of var. glabrata, from which it differs in the simpler, non-reticulate venu­
lation ofthe leaflets and in the broadly cunehorm or inversely deltate staminodes.
Except that it may possibly be cultivated on the Atlantic slope in Rio or Guanabara,
var. glabrata is not found along the coast of southeastern BrazU where it
is replaced by the closely related, respectively longi- and brevistyled vars. re­
condita and ambigua, and equaUy different from h in the compressed pod and
uniseriate seeds. A pod entirely similar in compression is the principal diagnostic
character also of longistylous var. missionum, which replaces var. pendula vi-
cariantly along the lower Paraguay river in Misiones, Argentina.
Beyond the intravarietal variation accounted for in our description it should be
mentioned that the populations found in wet coastal forest chmax and adjoining
restinga along the coast of Bahia tend to have relatively ample and thin-textured
but nonetheless finely reticulate leaflets. The eariiest collection of this form
(Luschnath in Martius 715) contributed to the protologue of C. bicapsularis var.
tenuifolia, which lectotypification permhs us to preserve for a quite different
Amazonian variety ofthe species.