Hydrochorea rhombifolia (Benth.) E.J.M. Koenen, 2022

Vinicius Batista Soares, Marcos, Mathieu Koenen, Erik Jozef, Ricardo Vieira Iganci, Joao & Morim, Marli Pires, 2022, A new generic circumscription of Hydrochorea (Leguminosae, Caesalpinioideae, mimosoid clade) with an amphi-Atlantic distribution, PhytoKeys 205, pp. 401-437 : 401

9. Hydrochorea rhombifolia (Benth.) E.J.M. Koenen comb. nov.

Figs 1A , 3M

Feuilleea rhombifolia (Benth.) Kuntze, Revis. Gen. Pl. 1: 189 (1891).

Cathormion rhombifolium (Benth.) Keay, Kew Bull. 8(4): 489 (1953).

Basionym.

Albizia rhombifolia Benth., London J. Bot. 3: 87 (1844).

Type material.

Guinée, Conakry, Heudelot 735 (lectotype designated here from amongst the syntypes: K [K000043955]!; isolectotypes: K [K000043954]!, K [K000043949]!, P [P00418271] digital image!, P [P00418272] digital image!, P [P00418270] digital image!).

Description.

Trees or shrubs up to 12 m tall, the young stems, all leaf-axes and peduncles puberulent-tomentulose with rusty brown hairs. Stipules deltoid, c. 1 mm long, puberulent-tomentulose, caducous. Leaves with 2-3 pairs of pinnae, petiole pulvinate, ventrally flattened above pulvinule and with central groove in upper half, 2-3.5(-8.5) cm long, rachis ventrally grooved, 1.5-4(-12.5) cm long, pinna rachises pulvinate, ventrally grooved, (3.2-)4-6(-12) cm long. Nectaries present at the petiole apex just below the first pair of pinnae as well as just below each further pair of pinnae, sessile or shortly stipitate on stipe to 0.5 mm, cupular or sometimes concave, circular and 0.8-2.2 mm in diameter, and between the upper 2-3 pairs of leaflets, trumpet-shaped and then on a short stipe 0.5 mm or cupular and (sub)sessile, the lower ones circular and the upper ones elliptical, 0.8-1.5 × 0.8-1.1 mm. Minute paraphyllidia sometimes present at the apex of the pinna-pulvinus. Leaflets in 4-6 pairs per pinna, closely spaced, bicoloured leaflets often with partly overlapping margins, bright green above and pale green beneath, dull on both surfaces, rhomboid with a pulvinate sessile oblique base and rounded to slightly emarginate apex, increasing in size towards pinna apex, (1.1-)1.7-3.5(-5.1) × (0.5-)1.2-1.8(-2.3) cm, except for the apical pair which has a less oblique to nearly acute base, (2.1-)2.5-4.5(-5.7) × (1.1-)1.5-2.5(-3.2) cm; venation pinnate with 8-12(-18) secondary veins brochidodromous, tertiary venation reticulate, prominulous on both surfaces, midribs ciliate on both sides, the lower leaflet surface pilose with a variable density of brownish to white hairs, rarely almost glabrous, sometimes villose particularly near the midrib giving a rusty orange-brown appearance. Inflorescences umbelliform capitula, axillary to co-eval leaves on peduncles (4.5-)5-9.5 cm long, dimorphic with 6-16 peripheral flowers and 1-2 terminal flower(s) with elongated exserted staminal tubes. Bracts spatulate, c. 1.8 mm long, puberulent with minute rusty hairs, caducous. Peripheral flowers on pedicels of 1-4 mm, calyx pentamerous, white, 3-3.5 mm long, fused, the deltoid lobes 1-1.3 mm long, glabrous or with few minute hairs, corolla pentamerous, white, 6-8 mm long, fused in the lower half, glabrous, pilose to villose in the upper half, androecium 1.6-2.3 cm long, consisting of 20-28 stamens with white filaments fused at the base into a short tube of c. 2 mm, anthers dorsifixed, pollen in 16-celled plano-compressed disc-shaped polyads, gynoecium with a c. 2 mm long ovary, pubescent on the upper half, the 1.6-2.5 cm long white style emerging from it at an angle of c. 45°, with a funnel-shaped stigma, extending beyond the stamens. Terminal flower(s) similar but larger and more robust in appearance, calyx c. 4.5 mm long with c. 1.5 mm long lobes, corolla c. 9 mm long, androecium with 30-36 stamens that are thicker and fused into a tube 7-10 mm long, exserted well beyond the corolla tube, and with a sunken nectariferous disk below the base of the ovary, gynoecium otherwise similar to that of the peripheral flowers. Pods straight to falcate, 6-12-seeded with a thin papery fruit wall and thickened rim, dark brown outside when ripe, whitish grey inside, (4.5-)7-12.5 × 1.4-1.9 cm, breaking up into 1-seeded articles 0.6-1.1 cm long, seed c. 7 × 4.5 × 2 mm, the testa hard, light brown with a wide lighter brown closed pleurogram.

Distribution and habitat.

Known from the tidal riverine systems near the coast from Senegal to Sierra Leone. Hydrochorea rhombifolia occurs often abundantly, in permanent or tidal swamp forest, including on the edge of mangrove swamps, and in gallery forests.

Notes.

Bentham (1844) described Albizia rhombifolia , before designation of holotypes was required by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Keay (1953) made the new combination Cathormion rhombifolium and cited the holotype as being at Kew. However, there are three specimens of Heudelot 735 at K, the type that was cited by Bentham, leaving it ambiguous as to which one of these represents the holotype. Therefore, the specimen from Herbarium Benthamianum (the oldest deposited specimen dating to 1854) is here designated as a lectotype: it has leaves and flowers, and is more richly annotated than the other two specimens.

Hydrochorea obliquifoliolata and H. rhombifolia are morphologically very similar and have sometimes been confused in herbaria, despite their clearly different geographical distributions. The species are readily separated by the darker appearance of the leaflets of H. obliquifoliolata , which have a distinct shine on the upper surface and the lower surface usually (sub-)glabrous (vs. a usually rusty pilose lower leaflet surface in H. rhombifolia ). The leaflets of H. rhombifolia are also more closely spaced than those of H. obliquifoliolata , the latter not having overlapping margins. Furthermore, the flower colour of the two species is clearly different (as per the key), a characteristic which remains apparent when comparing dried flowering specimens in the herbarium, and the corolla lobes of H. obliquifoliolata are glabrous or with a few short apical hairs (vs. pilose to villous on the upper half in H. rhombifolia ).

Selected specimens examined.

Sierra Leone: Mange , 7 February 1939, F.C. Deighton 3618 (K), Rokupr, 25 May 1953, F.C. Deighton 5925 (K), Kasanko (Mafore), 3 December 1950, T.S. Jones 52 (K), near Tassin and Kukum, 17 January 1892, G.F. Scott Elliot 4418 (K) ; Guinée-Bissau: Gabu, Ponte do rio Colufe , 10 June 1949, Espirito Santo 2500 (K) .

Figures

Figure 1. Phylogenomics of the Jupunba clade A ASTRAL-III species tree based on 398 gene trees, posterior probability values are shown only for those nodes for which support is lower than 1.0, and pie charts on several crucial nodes indicate alternative quartet support B filtered super-network of the same gene tree set with the genus Hydrochorea as circumscribed in this study indicated by a grey ellipse C bar graphs indicating numbers of compatible bipartitions across the same gene tree set in the maximum-likelihood estimate (ML) and when only taking into account bipartitions that receive at least 50 or 80 % bootstrap support. The abbreviations that are used are Bal = Balizia, Hyd = Hydrochorea, and Jup = Jupunba. Note that the taxonomy of Albizia sect. Arthrosamanea is updated in this volume by Aviles Peraza et al. (2022), where new binomials in the genus Pseudalbizzia are presented for the majority of the species of this section.

Figure 3. The genus Hydrochorea Barneby & J. W. Grimes (continued). Species from the Americas A flowering branch of Hydrochorea corymbosa (Rich.) Barneby & J. W. Grimes B close-up of inflorescence of H. corymbosa C discolorous leaves of H. corymbosa D close-up of inflorescence of Hydrochorea panurensis (Spruce ex Benth.) M. V. B. Soares, M. P. Morim & Iganci E unripe lomentiform pod of H. panurensis F close-up of inflorescence of Hydrochorea pedicellaris (DC.) M. V. B. Soares, Iganci & M. P. Morim, with a few peripheral flowers removed to expose sessile terminal flowers G unripe pods of H. pedicellaris H dehisced follicular pods of H. pedicellaris showing papery septate endocarp I detail of primary rachis of H. pedicellaris showing interpinnal extra-floral nectaries J inflorescence of Hydrochorea uaupensis M. P. Morim, Iganci & E. J. M. Koenen showing large sessile central flower and pedicellate peripheral flowers K unripe crypto-lomentiform pod and seed enveloped by septate endocarp of H. uaupensis; African species L inflorescence of Hydrochorea obliquifoliolata (De Wild.) E. J. M. Koenen M pinnae of Hydrochorea rhombifolia (Benth.) E. J. M. Koenen showing rhombic leaflets. A-E, J, K Erik Koenen F-I Colin Hughes L Jan Wieringa M William Hawthorne. Vouchers A-C J. R. V. Iganci 862 D, E M. P. Morim 563 F-I L. P. Queiroz 15529 J, K M. P. Morim 577 L J. J. Wieringa 6519 M unvouchered.