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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 cordata A. Gentry
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Note
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TYPE: Panama, Mori 6297 (MO, holotype).
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Description
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Tree 3-6 m tall; branchlets persistently puberulous with erect trichomes, even- tually glabrate, the old twigs with large widely scattered pale corky lenticels. Leaves frequently opposite, always in part alternate, 5-20 cm long, 2-8.5 cm wide, oblong-ovate to oblong-obovate, acute to acuminate, broadly shallowly cordate at the base, chartaceous, entire or with a few coarse teeth near the apex, drying dark above, olive brown with darker brown main veins below, the midvein impressed above and raised below, the lateral veins plane above and prominent below, the tertiary venation prominulous below, densely minutely punctate above, glabrous except for a few trichomes along the main veins; petiole (1-)2.5- 6 cm long, puberulous. Inflorescence cauliflorous or ramiflorous, openly pyram- idal paniculate, puberulous with erect trichomes, 14-25 cm long, the flowers on pedicels ca. 2 mm long. Flowers with the sepals 5, ovate, the tip rounded, ciliate, also sparsely puberulous; petals and stamens not seen; ovary ovoid, ca. 1 mm long, the style ca. 1 mm long. Fruit (immature) obovoid, to at least 1.5 cm long and 1 cm wide, white turning purple when fresh.
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Habit
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Tree
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Note
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Meliosma cordata is known only from intermediate altitudes on the slopes of Cerro Tute above Santa Fe. This species is distinctive on account of its long-petiolate, conspicuously cor- date leaves. The only other species which resembles M. cordata in leaf form is M. seleriana Urb. of Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico. Meliosma seleriana differs in longer narrower glabrous leaves, smaller (ca. 5 mm diam.) globose fruits, and having the inflorescences from the leaf axils or just below the leaves. One Costa Rican species, M. subcordata Standl., has the leaf base cordate but is very different in its short thick petioles and the narrowly oblong-obovate leaf shape gradually tapering to a narrowly cordate base; the inflorescences of M. subcor- data are terminal or in the axils of the uppermost leaves and that species has larger fruits 2 cm in diam.
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Specimen
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VERAGUAS: lower slopes of Cerro Tute, ca. 10 km NW of Santa Fe, 750-1000 m, Mori 6297 (MO).
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Tag
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Project Name
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