446 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



Fruits fleshy, 1 to 3 to each floral raceme. Pedicel thick, 10 to 15 mm. long. Drupe 

 6 to 8 cm. long, 3 to 4 cm. in diameter, yellowish green, verrucose outside, with a yellow 

 succulent mesocarp. Stone 5 to 6.5 cm. long, 2 to 2.5 cm. in diameter. 



Costa Rica: Guanacaste, Friedrichsthal; a Nicoya, alt. 135 meters; Toncluz, 

 flowers, March, 1900 (Instituto fis. geog. Costa Rica, no. 13858); Pittier, flowers, May, 

 1903 (Instituto fis. geog. Costa Rica, no. 16689); Cook & Doyle 681, flowers and fruit, 

 May 22, 1903 (U. S. National Herbarium). 



Explanation of Plates 87, 88.— PI. 87, inflorescence and fruits. From a photograph by Cook & Doyle. 

 PI. 88, landscape in Nicoya, showing olosapo trees. From a photograph by II. Pittier, January 1, 1904. 



Very nearly related to, if not identical with, Couepia polyandra (H. B. K.) Rose 

 (C. kunthiana Benth.), of the western coast of Mexico, from which our specimens differ 

 by the leaves being more rounded at the base and tip, the inflorescence much denser, 

 and the flowers nearly half smaller. The name Jloccosa applies as well to one species 

 as to the other, since in both the younger leaves are covered with the same floccose 

 indument. The pubescence on the inner side of the staminal ring is apparently 

 longer and thicker, and the hairs at the base of the style are more markedly retrorse 



Fig. 70.— Sterculia carthagenensis, leaves, a, Type of leaf from Santa Marta, Colombia; b, type of leaf 



from Central America. Bcale a. 



in the Mexican species than in the Costa Rican one. There seems to be also a consider- 

 able difference in the form and size of the fruit and in the outer texture of the stone. 

 ^ As already noted by Fritsch (loc. cit.) this species may be considered as a transi- 

 tional stage between Couepia and Hirtella, shown by the reduced number of the 

 stamens. It may be added that these appear to be in a single series and evenly dis- 

 tributed around the staminal ring. The cavity of the receptacle is obstructed at its 

 opening by a traplike arrangement, the object of which may be to detain certain insects. 

 In many cases, however, the tube is found to be eaten through at the base, showing 

 how the intended victims avoid the obstacle. 



Couepia Jloccosa blooms in Nicoya from the beginning of March, at the time of the 

 earlier showers, to May, when the first fruits are also reaching maturity. When I 

 visited the same trees for the second time, in January, ] 904, they were in full leaf, 

 notwithstanding the dryness of the season, the leaves being mainly new and growing 

 on shoots that were evidently a product of the latter part of the preceding rainy season 

 The specimens at hand show that the floral racemes of the next crop, at the opening of 

 the following wet period, develop in the axils of that latter growth. 



<* Fide Fritsch, loc. cit. 



