Letestua durissima
| Letestua durissima | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Letestua | ||||||||||||
| Lecomte | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Letestua durissima | ||||||||||||
| ( A. Chev. ) Lecomte |
Letestua durissima is a tree in the sapote family from central Africa, Gabon and the neighboring Congo . It is the only species in the Letestua genus.
description
Letestua durissima grows as a tree up to 50 meters high. The trunk diameter reaches up to 2.4 meters. The trunk is corrugated at the base or buttress roots are formed. The grayish-brown bark is scaly to flaky.
The simple, stalked, leathery leaves are tufted at the ends of the branches. The petiole is 3–4 inches long. The rounded to acuminate and entire, obovate to elliptical leaves are 16–24 centimeters long and 5–10 centimeters wide. The stipules are missing.
The flowers appear axially in small clusters. The hermaphroditic and stalked, white, small flowers are double- coated . The 6 egg-shaped sepals stand in two circles, they are hairy with rust on the outside and bare inside. The bald crown is fused in a short, up to 3-4 millimeter long tube with 12-18 small, up to 3-4 millimeter long spatula-shaped lobes, each lobe has two slightly larger, about the same length and deeper, lateral appendages on the base. There are 12-18 short stamens , staminodes are absent, but some anthers may be missing. The multilocular, hairy and flattened ovary is upper constant with a relatively short, cylindrical and bald pen . There is a notched disc .
It forms fleshy, single-seeded berries about 5–8 centimeters in size . The spindle-shaped, shiny and brown, woody seeds with an elongated stigma ( hilum ) are up to 3.5-3.7 inches long and 1–1.2 inches wide.
Taxonomy
The first description of the genus Letestua and the basionym Letestua durissima after Auguste Jean Baptiste Chevalier and the synonym Letestua floribunda was made in 1920 by Paul Henri Lecomte in Notul. Syst. (Paris) 4: 4, 5, 6.
use
The dark, heavy wood is durable but difficult to treat, it is known as Congotali .
literature
- K. Kubitzki : The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Vol. VI: Flowering Plants Dicotyledons Springer, 2004, ISBN 978-3-642 05714-4 (Reprint), p. 404 f.
- J. Gérard, D. Guibal, S. Paradis, J.-C. Cerre: Tropical Timber Atlas. Éditions Quæ, 2017, ISBN 978-2-7592-2798-3 , p. 239 ff, limited preview in the Google book search.
- A. Aubréville: Flore du Gabon. 1, 1961, p. 37 ff, online
Web links
- Letestua durissima at Useful Tropical Plants.
Individual evidence
- ↑ archive.org .