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(Last Modified On 3/18/2013)
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(Last Modified On 3/18/2013)
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Species
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Caperonia paludosa Kl.
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PlaceOfPublication
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London Jour. Bot. 2: 51, 1843.-Fig. 10.
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Synonym
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Caperonia panamensis Ki. in Seemann, Bot. Voy. Herald 103, 1853. Caperonia panamensis Pax & Hoffm., Pflanzenreich 63 (IV, 147, VII): 424, 1914. Caperonia angustc Blake, Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci. 14: 288, 1924. Caperonia stenomeres Blake, loc. cit.
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Description
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Herb to 6 dm high, sometimes woody at the base; stems subterete, striate, often hollow-fistulose, sparingly hispidulous-strigose when young, soon glabrate, branches weak and often straggling. Leaves membranous or chartaceous; petioles usually hispidulous, 1-7 mm long; stipules ovate or triangular, 0.8-2.5 mm long, 0.5-1.1 mm broad (ca 1-2 times as long as broad), entire or marginally and apically hispidulous, not becoming reflexed; blades narrowly lanceolate to linear, ca 4-12 cm long, 2-7 mm broad, glabrous except for a few appressed hairs on midrib and veins, the primary veins ca 6-15 on a side, the secondaries ? perpendicular but often inconspicuously or invisible, the base narrow or rounded, the margins re- motely and inconspicuously to sharply serrate, with ca 6-20 teeth on a side (some- times subentire), the apex acute to acuminate. Racemes spiciform, 1.5-3 cm long, with 1 or (less commonly) 2 basal 9 flowers; rachis appressed-hispidulous; bracts acute, entire or marginally hispidulous. Staminate flowers with short glabrous or hispidulous pedicels; calyx-lobes subequal, ca 1.4-1.5 mm long, acute, glabrous; petals obovate, subequal, or sometimes unequal, 1.2-2.2 mm long, 0.5-1 mm broad, the upper filaments longer than anthers, the lower shorter to slightly longer than the anthers, the anthers 0.4-0.5 mm long; pistillode cylindric, shallowly 3-lobed (sometimes barely emarginate), 0.4-0.9 mm long. Pistillate flowers subsessile, the glabrous pedicels less than 1 mm long in fruit; calyx-lobes 5 or 6 with 0-3 smaller outer lobes (or sometimes calyx of 3 large inner and 3 small outer lobes), flattish, thin, not ribbed, acute, sparsely glandular-setulose on the margins, to ca 2.5 mm long in fruit; petals subequal, equaling or exceeding the calyx-lobes at anthesis, 1.2-3 mm long, 0.6-1 mm broad; ovary strigose proximally, densely glandu- lar-muricate distally, the styles ca 1.5 mm long or less, 4-5-lobed 12 to, 2/3 their length, the lobes rather thick and fleshy. Capsules 4.8-5.1 mm in diam, strigose and muricate; seeds spheroidal, ca 2.4 mm long.
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Habit
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Herb
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Distribution
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Marshes, swamps, and savannas, eastern Mexico to the Guianas.
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Specimen
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CANAL ZONE: betw Fort Clayton & Corozal, Standley 29093 (US). COCLE: Aguadulce, Pittier 4922 (US); Las Margaritas to El Valle, Woodson et al. 1750 (F, GH, MO); Pe- nonome, Williams 212 (NY). PANAMA: Camino del Boticario, Chepo, Pittier 4547 (iso- type of C. panamensis Pax & Hoffm., US); La Joya, nr pond, Dodge et al. 16912 (MO); Juan Diaz, Standley 26224 (US); Las Sabanas, Bro. Heriberto 295 (NY, US), Killip 3121 pro parte (US); Matias Hernandez, Pittier 6927 (holotype of C. angusta, US), Standley 28910 (US), 31987 (US); Nuevo San Francisco, Standley 30765 (US): wet savannas E of Pacora, Woodson et al. 735 (A, F, MO, NY); ditches & wet savannas nr Panama, Hayes 714 (K, NY); swamps nr Panama, Seemann 119 (type coll. of C. panamensis KI., K, BM); Rio Tapia, Juan Diaz, Killip 3121 pro parte (NY); Rio Tocumen, Standley 26571 (US).
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Note
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The variable Panamanian populations of this species have been confusingly treated in the literature, and the synonymy has become excessively involved. However, despite the application of 4 names (2 of these fortuitously identical), only a single narrow-leaved species seems present in Panama, and it does not appear to be specifically different from the widespread C. paludosa. Mueller (in DC., Prodr. 15(2): 755, 1866) and Pax [Pfanzenreich 57 (IV, 147, VI): 35, 1912] may have partially initiated the confusion by describing the pistillate flowers of C. paludosa as having rudimentary petals. In fact, however, examination of the type collec- tion of C. paludosa (Schormburgk 109, K) shows that the pistillate flowers have petals ca 1.5-2 mm long, and are also well developed in the type collection of C. pianamensis K1. (Seemann 119, K). The petals are early deciduous in C. paludosa, which may account for these mistakes of description, and for the curious error made by Pax and Hoffmann in redescribing Klotzsch's species under the same specific epithet. Blake compounded all the confusion by uselessly renaming C. panamensis Pax & Hoffmann as C. stenomeres, and by proposing an additional species of C. angusta on the basis of a variant specimen (Pittier 6927, US) with 7-8-lobed pistillate calyx and a distinctly trilobed pistillode. Most of the Panamanian col- lections, however, resemble the type of C. panamensis Pax & Hoffmann in having the pistillate calyx 5- or 6-lobed. In any event, the plants with 7 or 8 pistillate calyx-lobes do not seem to be specifically distinct; whether the large number might be due to crossing with C. pcalustris must be tested by field observations.
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