Guatteria leucotricha Scharf & Maas

Maas, P. J. M., Westra, L. Y. T., Guerrero, S. Arias, Lobão, A. Q., Scharf, U., Zamora, N. A. & Erkens, R. H. J., 2015, Confronting a morphological nightmare: revision of the Neotropical genus Guatteria (Annonaceae), Blumea 60 (1), pp. 1-219 : 102

88. Guatteria leucotricha Scharf & Maas — Map 19

Guatteria leucotricha Scharf & Maas in Scharf et al. (2006a) 123, f. 3. — Type: Mori & Boom 15360 (holo NY; iso CAY, K, P, U, US), French Guiana , Saül, along road to airport, 200–400 m, 8 Dec. 1982.

Guatteria spec. A Maas & Maas-van de Kamer (2002) 62.

Tree 20–30 m tall, 35–45 cm diam,with steep,simple, round buttresses; young twigs densely covered with appressed hairs to c. 0.5 mm long, soon glabrous. Leaves: petiole 4–5 mm long, 1–1.5 mm diam; lamina narrowly elliptic to narrowly obovate, 9–14 by 2–3 cm (leaf index 3.5–4.5), chartaceous to subcoriaceous, not verruculose, dull, greyish green to brown above, brown below, densely covered with appressed, silvery, long hairs above, very soon glabrous, densely covered with appressed, silvery hairs below, base long-attenuate, apex acuminate (acumen 10–15 mm long), margins recurved, primary vein impressed above, secondary veins indistinct, 8–13 on either side of primary vein, slightly raised to flat above, indistinctly loop-forming, smallest distance between loops and margin 1–2 mm, tertiary veins slightly raised above, reticulate. Flowers solitary on leafless branchlets; flowering pedicels not seen, fruiting pedicels 5–10 mm long, 1–1.5 mm diam, sparsely covered with appressed, whitish hairs, articulated at 0.3–0.4 from the base, bracts c. 6, soon falling, not seen; flower buds, sepals, petals and stamens not seen. Monocarps 5 –20, maturing dark purple in vivo, shiny black in sicco, ellipsoid to obovoid, 7–9 by 5–7 mm, somewhat wrinkled in sicco, sparsely covered with appressed, whitish hairs, soon glabrous, apex apiculate (apiculum <0.5 mm long), wall 0.3–0.5 mm thick, stipes 10–13 by c. 1 mm. Seed ellipsoid, 5–7 by 3–4 mm, shiny, red-brown, rugulose, raphe raised.

Distribution — Central French Guiana.

Habitat & Ecology — In non-inundated, moist forest. At elevations of 200–400 m. Flowering: unknown; fruiting: Septem- ber, December.

Vernacular names — Not recorded.

Note — Guatteria leucotricha is very well characterized by long-attenuate leaves with recurved margins and by a dense indument of appressed silvery hairs on the lower side of the lamina. It comes very close to the allopatric G. modesta , which is known from Amazonian Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Guatteria modesta , however, lacks the silvery indument on the lower side of the lamina and the seeds are very different (pitted in G. modesta and rugulose in G. leucotricha ).