Cojoba Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 29. 1928.

Bruneau, Anne, de Queiroz, Luciano Paganucci, Ringelberg, Jens J., Borges, Leonardo M., Bortoluzzi, Roseli Lopes da Costa, Brown, Gillian K., Cardoso, Domingos B. O. S., Clark, Ruth P., Conceicao, Adilva de Souza, Cota, Matheus Martins Teixeira, Demeulenaere, Else, de Stefano, Rodrigo Duno, Ebinger, John E., Ferm, Julia, Fonseca-Cortes, Andres, Gagnon, Edeline, Grether, Rosaura, Guerra, Ethiene, Haston, Elspeth, Herendeen, Patrick S., Hernandez, Hector M., Hopkins, Helen C. F., Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, Isau, Hughes, Colin E., Ickert-Bond, Stefanie M., Iganci, Joao, Koenen, Erik J. M., Lewis, Gwilym P., de Lima, Haroldo Cavalcante, de Lima, Alexandre Gibau, Luckow, Melissa, Marazzi, Brigitte, Maslin, Bruce R., Morales, Matias, Morim, Marli Pires, Murphy, Daniel J., O'Donnell, Shawn A., Oliveira, Filipe Gomes, Oliveira, Ana Carla da Silva, Rando, Juliana Gastaldello, Ribeiro, Petala Gomes, Ribeiro, Carolina Lima, Santos, Felipe da Silva, Seigler, David S., da Silva, Guilherme Sousa, Simon, Marcelo F., Soares, Marcos Vinicius Batista & Terra, Vanessa, 2024, Advances in Legume Systematics 14. Classification of Caesalpinioideae. Part 2: Higher-level classification, PhytoKeys 240, pp. 1-552 : 1

Cojoba Britton & Rose, N. Amer. Fl. 23: 29. 1928.

Figs 212 , 215

Pithecellobium sect. Cojoba (Britton & Rose) Mohlenbr., Reinwardtia 6: 446. 1963. Type: Pithecellobium arboreum (L.) Urb. [≡ Mimosa arborea L. (≡ Cojoba arborea (L.) Britton & Rose)]

Obolinga Barneby, Brittonia 41: 170. 1989. Type: Obolinga zanonii Barneby [≡ Cojoba zanonii (Barneby) Barneby & Grimes]

Type.

Cojoba arborea (L.) Britton & Rose [≡ Mimosa arborea L.]

Description.

Unarmed medium-sized to sometimes large canopy-emergent trees to 60 m tall and 1 m stem diameter, and arborescent shrubs, either micro- or macrophyllidious. Stipules small, ephemeral, or obsolescent, rarely persistent, sometimes lignescent. Leaves bipinnate, in one species [ C. rufescens (Benth.) Britton & Rose] paripinnate, extrafloral nectaries sessile, cupular thick-rimmed on petiole at, or close, below pinnae-pairs, exceptionally 1-2 on petiole; pinnae 1-22 pairs; leaflets 2-50 pairs per pinna, variable in shape, sometimes rhombic, asymmetric, venation palmate, pinnate, or indistinct. Inflorescence spherical capitula, receptacle subglobose, arising either singly or fasciculate. Flowers sessile, homomorphic, 5-merous; calyx campanulate or deeply campanulate, 5-veins or almost veinless, very shortly toothed; corolla tubular or very narrowly trumpet-shaped; stamens 20-66, joined at the base, shortly exceeding or as long as the corolla; pollen in 16-grained polyads, isodiametric; intrastaminal disc absent; ovary sessile or subsessile, ellipsoid to linear-ellipsoid. Fruits dehiscence through one or both margins, pendulous, linear or broad-linear in profile and simply retrofalcate or randomly to spirally contorted, shallowly to deeply constricted between seeds (moniliform), the sutures immersed; valves leathery-fleshy and glossy red when fresh, after dehiscence withering brown, crumpling and contracting to expose the seeds; endocarp smooth tan internally. Seeds ellipsoid to subglobose, funicle straight or simply bent, subfiliform and wiry, or narrowly dilated and stiff after dehiscence, black or dark brown, lacking pleurogram.

Chromosome number.

Unknown.

Included species and geographic distribution.

Twelve species ( Barneby and Grimes 1997), but up to 19 species were recognised by Zamora Villalobos (2010), occurring in southern Mexico, throughout Central America, the Greater Antilles (four species), and north-western trans-Andean South America including the western fringes of Amazonia (four species) (Fig. 215 ).

Ecology.

Most species of Cojoba are adapted to wet tropical lowland or submontane to montane evergreen (cloud) forest, and riparian forest, up to ca. 2600 m elevation, but the four West Indian species grow in semi-deciduous lowland scrub, woodland, or chaparral. Flowering apparently at any time of year and in some species more or less continuously so. Seeds likely bird-dispersed.

Etymology.

Cojoba is a vernacular name for C. arborea in Puerto Rico.

Notes.

The current concept of the genus Cojoba ( Barneby and Grimes 1997) is similar to that of Britton and Rose (1928) but expanded to include two additional species: Cojoba filipes (Vent.) Barneby & J.W. Grimes and Obolinga zanonii Barneby ( Barneby 1989) [≡ Cojoba zanonii (Barneby) Barneby & J.W. Grimes (1997)]. Cojoba is characterised by twigs unarmed, inflorescence usually pendulous, capitate, with homomorphic flowers, fruits pendulous, cylindrical, broadly linear in profile, usually strongly retrofalcate to spirally twisted, the valves bright red and fleshy, barely or deeply constricted between seeds (moniliform), seeds black, shiny, ellipsoid to subglobose, without aril. The fruits of the Antillean species, except for Cojoba arborea and C. filipes , are massive, cylindrical, straight, or slightly recurved, slightly constricted between seeds, with cylindrical or discoid seeds.

Taxonomic references.

Barneby and Grimes (1997); Britton and Rose (1928); Zamora Villalobos (2010).

Figures

Figure 212. Morphology of Cojoba clade A-C Cojoba arborea (L.) Britton & Rose A habit B leaves C fruit D Cojoba graciliflora (S. F. Blake) Britton & Rose in Mexico, fruit E-G Hesperalbizia occidentalis (Brandegee) Barneby & J. W. Grimes E habit F trunk G leaves and fruits H Lysiloma candidum Brandegee, habit l Lysiloma acapulcense (Kunth) Benth. fruit J-N Lysiloma latisiliquum (L.) Benth. J habit K trunk L leaves and stipule M flowers N fruit O, P Lysiloma tergeminum Benth., fruits. Photo credits A-C GA Romero Gonzalez D, J-N R Duno de Stefano E-I, O, P CE Hughes.

Figure 215. Distribution of Cojoba based on quality-controlled digitised herbarium records. See Suppl. material 1 for the source of occurrence data.