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

1982] CASSIINAE—SENNA 401
only ± hah the pod's cavhy, each hned with fetid sweetish pulp; seeds plumply
compressed-obovoid or semi-obovoid (sometimes distorted by crowding)
3.9-5.l(-5.5) X 2.9-4(-4.3) x ±2 mm, the brown testa usuaUy smooth and lustrous
sometimes minutely granular, exareolate.
Senna bicapsularis of this account is equivalent to Cassia bicapsularis of De
Wh (1955), Brenan (1967) and Lasseigne (1980, dissert, ined.) and to Adipera
bicapsularis Britton & Rose (1930, excluding the synonym Cassia coluteoides
which = S. pendula); foUowing these precedents we abandon Bentham's comprehensive
definition that was stretched to include the species treated above as
S. pendula and S. candolleana. Like our predecessors, we stress the short pedicels
as the most distinctive feature of S. bicapsularis sens, str., but must point
out that the pedicel as described hitherto is actuahy, like that of S. (ser. Senna)
alexandrina, not a simple stalk but actually compounded of a true pedicel and a
downwardly attenuate hypanthium which may be either slightly longer or shorter
than it. Thus the true pedicel is, by comparison with that of related species, even
shorter than has been supposed. The composite structure of the flower-stalk is
especially apparent in unfertihzed flowers, which disjoint at the plane of junction,
and again in the thickened fruiting flower-stalk, where the discontinuity is marked
externahy at first by a more or less emphatic swelling and later (often but not
always) by an incised scar.
Intraspecific variation in S. bicapsularis, other than such as is readily attrib­
utable to age and environment, is marked only in western South America. Along
the Pacific slope of the Andes between southernmost Ecuador and southern Peru
there appear to be both truly native and adventive populations ofthe species, the
latter inseparable from their Caribbean kindred, the autochthonous ones differing
in their mostly or entirely 4-foholate leaves. Following Macbride (1943) in this,
but not all details of his account, we recognize a var. augusti.
Key to the Varieties of S. bicapsularis
1. Lfts of mature lvs (disregarding depauperate ones of paniculate inflorescences) mostly or
entirely 3-4 pairs, 4-foliolate lvs few or absent; range ofthe species, but in Ecuador, Peru
and Chile only about coastal cities, presumed adventive. 129a. var. bicapsularis (p. 401).
1. Lfts of all lvs exactly 2 pairs (random 3-jugate lfts obviously exceptional); native at low and
middle elevations along the Pacific slope of the Andes from extreme s. Ecuador to s. Peru.
129b. var. augusti (p. 403).
129a. Senna bicapsularis (Linnaeus) Roxburgh var. bicapsularis. Cassia bicapsularis
Linnaeus, 1753, I.e., sens. str.—''Habitat in India."—Lecto­
holotypus (De Wit, 1955, p. 236, accepted as syntypus by Brenan,
1967, p. 71 and by Isely, 1975, p. 198), LINN 52^/70!—First described
by Linnaeus from sterile plants grown in Clifford's garden (Hort. Cliff.
159, Cassia no. 11. 1737) from seed thought to be from Ceylon ["in
Zeylona, ut fertur"], but the synonym of Plumier quoted in the pro­
tologue, derived from a West Indian plant, provided the critical character
of the pod and the descriptive epithet.—Cathartocarpus bicap­
sularis (Linnaeus) W. Hamilton, Prod. Pl. Ind. Occ. 38. 1825. Adipera
bicapsularis (Linnaeus) Britton & Rose ex Britton & WUson, Sci.
Surv. Porto Rico 5(3): 370. 1924.
Cassia emarginata Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 376. \153.—'"Habitat in Caribaeis."—First described by
Linnaeus in Hort. Cliffort. 159. 1738 as Cassia foliolis trium parium aequalibus ovatis emarginatis
rotundatis and there equated with C. minor fruticosa hexaphylla sennae foliis Sloane,
Voy. Jam. 2: 44, t. 180, fig. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1725.—"This grows in the Plain or Low-lands of