Oreomunnea mexicana
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Oreomunnea mexicana |
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| ( Stand. ) Leroy |
Oreomunnea mexicana is a Central American tree from the walnut family(Juglandaceae). The wood is hard and is made into baseball bats.
features
The trees reach heights of 15 to 40 m and a diameter of up to 100 cm at chest height . The trunk is upright, the branching starts relatively high. Buttress roots are formed to a moderate extent. The bark peels, is reddish-brown on the surface and light orange on the inside. The bud and twigs are covered with bronze-yellow, shield-shaped scales and are not hairy.
The leaves are opposite and are pinnate in pairs, hairy in the bud, then bare when fully grown. The petiole is 1 to 3 cm long, the rhachis 2 to 12. The 4 to 12 leaflets are opposite to almost opposite. The leaf margin is usually whole, individual shoots also have leaves with a roughly serrated leaf margin. The leaf base is symmetrical or asymmetrical, rolled back on one or both sides, and often eyelet. The leaf shoots in large trees three times a year in March to June, in August and in November. Young leaves are yellowish-red.
The female inflorescences are terminally on this year's shoots individually or in groups of several. They stand upright during flowering and contain 30 or more individual flowers per kitten . When the fruit ripe they are hanging. The male inflorescences are terminal and form a panicle of 1 to 6 pendent catkins. Androgynous panicles are also regularly found: a central female ear is surrounded at the base by 1 to 3 pairs of opposing male catkins.
The male flowers are small. The supporting sheet is three-lobed. There are 4, rarely 5 flower segments (sepals and / or bracts ). Each segment includes sometimes 2, rarely 3 stamens . The female flowers are sessile to almost sessile and are at an angle of 45 ° to the kitten axis. The flower tube is short, calyx lobes and stigma are not clearly raised above the flower cup. The four calyx lobes are wide. The stylus is short and deeply divided into two stylus arms. Flowering takes place at the same time as the new leaves shoot.
The fruit is medium-sized and has three wings. The sides are up to 4.5 cm in size, the middle up to 3.5 cm. The nut fruit is spherical, up to 10 mm in size and surrounded by a thin (0.03 mm), paper cover. The nutshell is cartilaginous and 0.11 mm thin.
The first leaves of the seedling that appear outdoors are alternate and pinnate with a serrated leaf margin. The subsequent leaves are then opposite, the leaf margin becomes increasingly whole in the course of growth.
distribution
The species occurs from southern Mexico to Costa Rica . In Mexico, it occurs mainly in the states of Vera Cruz , Oaxaca and Chiapas . It grows in the primary forest of the mountain rainforest level between 1100 and 1850 m above sea level.
Systematics
The species is divided into two subspecies, which differ in details of the flower morphology:
- Oreomunnea mexicana subsp. mexicana from Mexico to Nicaragua
- Oreomunnea mexicana subsp. costaricensis D.E. Stone in Costa Rica.
supporting documents
- Donald E. Stone: Juglandaceae , in: William Burger (Ed.): Flora Costaricensis , Fieldiana Botany, Volume 40, 1977, pp. 28-53, ISSN 0015-0746
- Héctor V. Navare Flores: Juglandaceae . Flora de Vera Cruz, Volume 31, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones sobre Recursos Bióticos, Xalapa 1983, ISBN 84-89600-51-1
