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(Last Modified On 9/19/2013)
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(Last Modified On 9/19/2013)
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Species
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Meliosma brenesii Standley
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PlaceOfPublication
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Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Bot. Ser. 18: 648. 1937.
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Note
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TYPE: Costa Rica, Alajuela, La Palma de San Ramon, 1,050 m, Brenes 5556 (F, holotype; NY, isotype).
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Description
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Small to medium-sized tree 3-10 m tall; branchlets subterete, villous with reddish-brown trichomes, densely so when young, longitudinally striate. Leaves alternate, 9-27 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, oblanceolate or oblong oblanceolate, acu- minate, cuneate at the base, chartaceous, subentire to slightly and remotely ser- rate, drying dark olive gray above, olive with tannish main veins below, the lateral veins 12-15 on a side, the tertiary venation prominulous below and plane above, densely hirsute along the main vein above, less pubescent and glabrescent over the surface, below hirsute along the main veins, sparsely pubescent and glabrescent over the surface, more or less inconspicuously lepidote; petiole 0.3- 1 cm long, reddish hirsute. Inflorescence axillary, narrowly paniculate or almost racemose, the rachis rufous-hirsute, the flowers subsessile or with pedicels up to 3 mm long on 1-flowered secondary branches. Flowers with 4 sepals, broadly ovate, ca. 2 mm long and 3 mm wide, ciliate; outer petals white, falling explosively at anthesis (fide collector), suborbicular, 3-5 mm in diam., minutely ciliate, thin- ner only at extreme edge; stamens 2, the strap-shaped filaments 1.5-2 mm long, the basal appendages (reduced inner petals) also 1.5-2 mm long, the thecae thick, suborbicular, ca. 0.6 mm long, apically proximate, basally widely separated by the thickened connective; ovary conical, ca. 1 mm long, apically merging with the ca. 2 mm long style. Fruit subglobose, 1.8-2 cm in diam.
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Habit
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tree
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Distribution
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This species is known only from two collections, the Costa Rican type and the single Panamanian collection cited below.
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Note
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Meliosma brenesii is characterized by the largest flowers of any Panamanian Meliosma except very different M. grandiflora. The narrow leaves and reddish villous twigs are also useful characters. One Panamanian fruiting collection may also be related to M. brenesii. This is Folsom and Collins 6508 (MO) from Alto Calvario, 7 km N of El Cope, Cocle Province, 700-850 m, which is vegetatively similar to M. brenesii but has smaller (1.5 cm long, 1.5 cm diam.) more strongly keeled and asymmetric fruits and is less densely pubescent. If not referrable to M. brenesii, the Folsom collection represents an undescribed species.
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Specimen
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CHIRIQUi: 3-5 mi NE of Boquete, end of road along Rio Palo Alto, Hammel 5664 (MO).
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