Pouteria caimito ( Ruiz & Pavón 1802: 18 ) Radlkofer (1882: 333)

Völtz, Rafael R., Alves-Araújo, Anderson & Goldenberg, Renato, 2020, Native Species of Sapotaceae Juss. in Paraná, Brazil, Phytotaxa 430 (4), pp. 224-276 : 251-253

5.3 Pouteria caimito ( Ruiz & Pavón 1802: 18) Radlkofer (1882: 333) . Figure 15

Canopy to emergent tree. Trunk section cylindrical or irregular in the lower third of the trunk, buttressed or not; bark reddish-brown, scaly, scales woody, rectangular, sometimes fissured-scaly, fissure shallow or deep, short or long, irregular, oblique, ridges flattened; slash light yellow-orange, tangential section with longitudinal streaks, not discoloured, with abundant or seldom scanty latex. Stems with apical bud ferrugineus, becoming blackish when young, soon grayish, grayish-brown or yellowish-brown, not lenticellate, slightly scaly, rounded, sericeous-tomentose or pubescent at first, becoming glabrous when older. Leaves loosely clustered at the stem apex. Petiole (5.0–)7.0– 22.0(–26.0) mm long, slightly grooved at the apex, rounded at the base, sericeous-tomentose or pubescent, sometimes glabrous. Leaf blade chartaceous, 4.0–18.0 × 1.0–5.0 cm, oblanceolate or narrow-elliptic, apex acute or obtuse, seldom acuminate, base acute, cuneate or narrowly decurrent, glabrous on both sides or with sparse hairs on midrib on the abaxial surface, venation eucamptodromous or seldom brochidodromous, midrib slightly raise but recessed on the adaxial surface, raised on the abaxial surface, secondaries 9–15 pairs, convergent, arcuate, flat or slightly raised on the adaxial surface, raised on the abaxial surface, intramarginal vein present, intersecondaries absent, tertiary veins loosely reticulate, slightly raised on both sides, quaternary veins reticulate. Inflorescences axillary or ramiflorous, sometimes densely clustered, 1–5-flowered. Pedicel 0.8–2.5 mm long, sericeous-tomentose or glabrous. Flowers androgynous, greenish-white or greenish-cream in vivo; calyx in 2 whorls of 2 sepals, 2.4–4.0 mm long, the outer ones wide-ovate or ovate, apex obtuse, margin entire or ciliate, abaxial surface sericeous-tomentose or glabrous, adaxial surface glabrous, the inner ones elliptic, apex obtuse, margin ciliate, abaxial surface sericeous-tomentose, adaxial surface glabrous, with a broad glabrous marginal stripe; corolla tubulose, glabrous, 5.2–6.3 mm long, tube longer or slightly equal than the lobes, 3.0– 4.3 mm long, lobes 4, 2.0–3.0 mm long, oblong or wide-oblong, apex truncate or obtuse, margin ciliate; stamens 4, fixed halfway to the corolla tube or with a sligh variation below or above, filaments 2.5 mm long, glabrous, anthers 1.1–1.7 mm long, glabrous; staminodes 4, 1.0– 1.7 mm long, narrow-lanceolate, margin entire; ovary 4-locular, 0.7–1.8 mm long, ovoid, style 2.7–5.0 mm long, glabrous, stigma slightly lobed. Fruit brownish or ferrugineous, 1.4–2.3 × 1.1–1.7 cm, narrow-elliptic or ovate, tomentose, hard thick pericarp, calyx persistent. Seed not available.

Selected material: — BRAZIL. Paraná: Guaraqueçaba, 5 May 2017, R.R. Völtz 211 ( MBM, UPCB). Morretes, 4 October 1968, G.G. Hatschbach 19899 ( MBM, NY). Paranaguá, 26 March 1975, G.G. Hatschbach 36582 ( MBM).

Additional selected material: — BRAZIL. São Paulo: Cajati, 30 September 2002, J.M. Silva 3648 ( MBM). Pariquera-Açu, 29 June 1996, N.M. Ivanauskas 838 ( MBM). São Miguel Arcanjo, 20 April 2002, A.P. Savassi 231 ( MBM). São Paulo, 10 April 1932, P. Gonçalves s.n. ( MBM 215813).

In Paraná Pouteria caimito occurs in the mountainous region of the Atlantic coast and Serra do Mar on hill slopes between 20 and 800 m elev., in Lowland, Submontane and Montane Atlantic Rain Forest. Collected with flower buds in February and flowers in March and April, with fruits in May, July, August and October. It can be recognized by the scaly or sometimes fissured-scaly bark, the slash with outer bark light-brown or dark-brown that, in many cases, shows whitish spots or lines on the surface, the leaf with loosely reticulate tertiary veins and finely reticulate quaternary veins, and the fruits with a ferruginous tomentose indumentum. The fruits sometimes remain in the tree for a long time. Pennington (1990) considered P. caimito vegetatively similar to P. guianensis . Both species share similar bark pattern and slash, although the trunk of P. guianensis is usually strongly fluted. However, the leaf morphology of P. caimito is very distinctive, with the petiole slightly grooved at the apex and rounded at the base (vs. weakly grooved in all its length in P. guianensis ), much narrower leaves (1.0–5.0 cm wide, vs. broader leaves, 4.0– 9.5 cm wide), leaf base usually acute or cuneate (vs. obtuse or rounded), and tertiary venation loosely reticulate (vs. clearly differentiated into oblique tertiaries and reticulate quaternaries), besides the distinct geographic occurrence. Pouteria caimito is similar to P. beaurepairei due to the glabrous leaves and the loosely reticulate tertiary veins. It can be distinguished from the latter by the narrow-lanceolate staminodes with entire margins (vs. oblong or wide-oblong, with ciliate margin in P. beaurepairei ), and by the brownish or ferrugineous, tomentose fruits (vs. yellowish, orangish or reddish, puberulent or glabrescent).

Conservation Status: —This species was listed as “Not evaluated” ( NE) by CNCFlora (2018). In Paraná P. caimito is irregularly distributed on hill slopes and occasionally on the coastal plain in the Atlantic Rain Forest. Most of its populations are in protected areas, but the loss of habitat to agriculture/pastures is the main problem to its conservation.

Figures

FIGURE 15. Pouteria caimito. A. Habit. B. Bark. C. Slash. D. Abaxial surface of the leaf. E. Flower, longitudinal section. F. Adaxial surface of the corolla and detail of the ciliate margin. G. Fruit. H. Stem with flower. I. Detail of the venation. J. Detail of the young stem. (A without voucher; B–D, G, I–J from R.R. Völtz 976; E–F from A.P. Savassi 231; H from N.M. Ivanauskas 838) (ov: ovary; st: stamen; stm: staminode).