Pouteria guianensis Aublet (1775: 86)

Völtz, Rafael R., Alves-Araújo, Anderson & Goldenberg, Renato, 2020, Native Species of Sapotaceae Juss. in Paraná, Brazil, Phytotaxa 430 (4), pp. 224-276 : 258-260

5.7 Pouteria guianensis Aublet (1775: 86) . Figure 19

Canopy tree or occasionally treelet. Trunk section fluted or cylindrical, buttressed and fluted; bark reddish-brown, scaly, scales papyraceous, rectangular or irregular, or fissured-scaly, fissure shallow or occasionally deep, short, V-shaped, oblique, ridges V-shaped; slash light yellow-orange, tangential section with longitudinal streaks, discoloured to dark yellow-orange or not, with abundant or seldom scanty latex. Stems with young shoots ferrugineous, soon yellowish-brown or grayish-brown, not lenticellate, cracked and scaly, rounded, hispid-tomentose at first, becoming glabrous when older. Leaves clustered at the stem apex. Petiole 4.5–17.0(–20.0) mm long, weakly grooved, hispid-tomentose. Leaf blade chartaceous, 7.0–19.0 × 4.0– 9.5 cm, elliptic, narrow-obovate or oblanceolate, seldom narrow-elliptic, apex rounded, obtuse or weakly retuse, seldom acute or shortly acuminate, base obtuse, rounded or cuneate, seldom truncate or acute, glabrous, but with sparse hairs on midrib and secondaries on both sides, venation eucamptodromous, sometimes eucampto-brochidodromous, midrib slightly raised but recessed on the adaxial surface, raised on the abaxial surface, secondaries 11–18 pairs, straight and slighlty arcuate near the margin, parallel, slightly raised on the adaxial surface, raised on the abaxial surface, intramarginal vein present, intersecondaries absent or poorly developed, tertiary veins percurrent, branches oblique, flat on the adaxial surface, slightly raised on the abaxial surface, quaternary veins reticulate. Inflorescences ramiflorous, 2–4-flowered. Pedicel 0.0– 0.7 mm long, sericeous-tomentose. Flowers androgynous; calyx in 2 whorls of 2 sepals, 4.4–5.3 mm long, the inner ones longer than the outer ones, suborbiculate or wide-elliptic, apex acute, margin ciliate, abaxial surface sericeous-tomentose, adaxial surface glabrous, the inner ones with a broad glabrous marginal stripe; corolla tubulose, glabrous, ca. 8.0 mm long, tube longer than the lobes, ca. 5.5 mm long, lobes 4, ca. 3.0 mm long, suborbiculate, apex rounded, margin sparsely ciliate; stamens 4, fixed in the upper third of the corolla tube, filaments 2.6 mm long, glabrous, anthers ca. 2.5 mm long, glabrous; staminodes 4, ca. 2.0 mm long, oblong, margin entire or sparsely ciliate; ovary 4-locular, 0.8 mm long, globose, style 7.2 mm long, glabrous, stigma slightly lobed. Fruit ripening yellowish, ca. 5.4 × 3.9 cm, suborbiculate or globose, when immature tomentose, becoming pubescent or glabrescent, hard thick pericarp, calyx persistent, 1-seeded. Seed ca. 1.9 × 1.0 cm, ellipsoid; testa smooth, shining; scar ca. 18.5 mm long, narrow, covering most of the seed length, narrow-oblong.

Selected material: — BRAZIL. Paraná: Alto Paraíso, 5 December 1995, J. Carneiro 95 ( MBM). Diamante do Norte, 17 October 2001, C.I.L.F. Rosa 19 ( HUEM, UPCB). Diamante do Norte, 19 September 2011, H.C. Belan 16 ( HUEM, UPCB). Icaraíma, 21 January 1967, G.G. Hatschbach 15815 ( MBM, UPCB). Querência do Norte, 16 December 2005, E.M. Alves 248 ( HUEM, RB, UPCB).

Additional selected material: — BRAZIL. Mato Grosso do Sul: Amambaí, 2 August 2000 G.G. Hatschbach 58703 ( MBM).

In Paraná Pouteria guianensis occurs in the riverside and alluvial plains of the Paraná river and its tributaries, between 220 and 400 m elev., in Seasonal Semideciduous Forest. Collected with flowers in September, October and December and with fruits in December and January. It can be recognized by the fluted trunk, especially at the base in larger specimens, the scaly bark or sometimes fissured-scaly bark with grooves and ridges anastomosing along the trunk, the glabrous abaxial surface of the leaves, and the conspicuous differentiation between the oblique terciaries from reticulate quaternaries. Before this work, P. guianensis was not recorded for Paraná. It was either misidentified as P. caimito , or as P. torta , and consequently this becomes the first record in Paraná. The specimens from Paraná fit as P. torta subsp. glabra (according to Pennigton 1990), which differs from P. torta subsp. torta and P. torta subsp. tuberculata ( Sleumer 1938: 18) T.D. Pennington (1990: 483) by the glabrous abaxial leaf surface (vs. pubescent or tomentose). Currently P. torta subsp. glabra is a synonym of P. guianensis ( Alves-Araújo 2014) . Pouteria guianensis is similar to P. bullata due to the leaves densely clustered at the stem apex, and leaf shape and width. It can be distinguished from the latter by the glabrous abaxial leaf surface (vs. tomentose in P. bullata ), the leaves not bullate (vs. bullate), and the corolla lobes with sparsely ciliate margins (vs. ciliate), besides the distinct geographic occurrence.

Conservation Status: —This species was listed as “Not evaluated” ( NE) by CNCFlora (2018). In Paraná P. guianensis is irregularly distributed on riverside and alluvial plains of the Paraná river and its tributaries, and few individuals are in protected areas. Nowadays the main problem to its conservation are the decline in the quality of habitat, the construction of dams and urbanization.

Figures

FIGURE 19. Pouteria guianensis. 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. Lateral and frontal view of the seed. H. Fruit. I. Stem with fruit. J. Detail of the venation; K. Detail of the stem indumentum. (A–D, K without voucher; E–F from C.I.L.F. Rosa 19; G from G.G. Hatschbach 15815; H–J from J. Carneiro 95) (ov: ovary; sc: seed scar; st: stamen; stm: staminode).