Alfaroa williamsii
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| Alfaroa williamsii | ||||||||||||
| Ant.Molina |
Alfaroa williamsii is a Central American tree from the walnut family(Juglandaceae). The species is named after the American botanist Louis Otho Williams .
features
Alfaroa williamsii is a 15 to 25 m high tree with a trunk diameter of 30 to 50 cm. The bark is smooth or wrinkled with age. It separates easily from the trunk in small, thin leaves. It is greenish yellow or light cream in color. The branches are cylindrical, bare, mostly striped or warty and have numerous brown, elliptical to round lenticels .
The leaves are almost opposite or alternate, 15 to 25 cm long and pinnate in pairs with 3 to 5 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets are elliptical to elliptical-lanceolate, pointed to pointed at the end and crooked at the base. They have 14 to 20 pairs of lateral nerves and are bare on the underside. The leaflets are 4 to 13.5 cm long and 1.5 to 3.5 cm wide with a 1.4 to 4.5 cm long petiole . The leaflets are short stalked.
The male inflorescences are terminal or axillary. They are panicles of several erect, multi-flowered catkins . The female inflorescence is a terminal or lateral spike with few flowers .
Male flowers are sessile, glandular, have a three-lobed, 3 to 4 mm long cover sheet with 0.5 mm long lateral lobes and a 1 mm long middle lobe. The two sepals are oblong or obovate and around 1 mm long. There are 7 to 9 stamens with two sessile, elongated, 1 to 1.5 mm long anthers . The female flowers are sessile, 5 to 7 mm in size, with four sepals. These are thick, fleshy, mostly hairy, obovate or obovate, 2 to 4 mm long, 0.5 to 1.5 mm wide. The scar is bilobed, about 1 to 1.5 mm long, the stylus is 2 mm long, the ovary 2 mm long. It sits on a three-lobed, 1 to 2 mm long bract with 0.5 to 2 mm long lobes.
The fruit is a stone fruit- like nut fruit . It is sessile, lignified, hard, bare, 8 to 12 pods with up to 13 septa. The nut is round to obovate, 14 to 17 mm long and 13 to 16 mm wide and has 8 to 9 raised ribs. When ripe, sepals and stylus are preserved at the tip of the fruit.
distribution
Alfaroa williamsii occurs in Nicaragua and Costa Rica . In Nicaragua, the species is known from the departments of Matagalpa and Jinotega . It grows at around 1400 m above sea level in the Central Cordillera on former clear-cut areas of cloud forests. The finds in Costa Rica are near Tapantí and San Isidro de Cartago in the Cordillera de Talamanca and the Cordillera de Tilarán .
Systematics
The species is divided into two subspecies, which differ in the shape of the male flowers:
- Alfaroa williamsii subsp. williamsii in Nicaragua
- Alfaroa williamsii subsp. tapantiensis in Costa Rica