PJTTIEE — PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 455 



numerous, more or less parallel, simple or ramified and profusely anastomosed, the 

 principal ones merging into a marginal nerve. 



Flowers in fascicles of 1 to 5 in the axils of deciduous leaves. Female flowers: 

 Pedicels slender, 1 to 2 cm. long; sepals 2, conchoid, rounded with a more or less dis- 

 tinct apex, 1.2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. broad; petals more or less ovate-rounded, often 

 with an acute tip, 3.5 to 4 mm. long, 2.5 to 3 mm. broad; staminodes about 10 (?), 

 deciduous, 1.5 to 2 mm. long, with minute rudimentary anthers; disk lobulate, about 

 2.5 mm. in diameter and 0.6 mm. high; ovary globose-depressed, about 2.5 mm. in 

 diameter and 2 mm. high, bilocular by abortion and each cell with one ovule; stigma 

 sessile, peltate, with smooth edge, about 1.5 mm. in diameter and 0.2 mm. high. 

 Male flowers and fruit not known. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 398468, collected upon Rio Lanqum 

 (Alta Verapaz), Guatemala, at an altitude of about 400 meters by von Tiirckheim, 

 female flowers only, March, 1902 (Donnell Smith distribution no. 8180). 

 Also collected around Sepacuite (Alta Verapaz), at about 1,000 meters altitude, 



Cook & Griggs 477, leaves only, April 5, 1902 

 (U. S. National Herbarium, no. 408188). 



This species differs from R. macrophylla Planch. 

 & Triana var. benthamiana Vesque, under which 

 name it has been distributed, in several partic- 

 ulars. Its flowers are about half smaller and the 

 staminodes apparently less numerous; the stigma 

 is narrower, not quite covering the globose-de- 

 pressed ovary; the disk is not so pronounced. 

 In the petioles the canal is almost closed by the 

 reflexed wings and the fovcola is more elongate. 

 This tree is now made known under its new 

 name with the concurrence of Capt. John Don- 

 nell Smith, who kindly furnished the best ma- 

 terials of his rich herbarium to make possible a 

 satisfactory description. 



Rheedia madruno Planch. & Triana, Ann. Sci. 

 Nat. IV. 14:315. 1860. 



Plates 92, 93. Figure 82. 

 A tree 6 to 8 meters high, with a low, pyramidal 

 or subspherical, densely leafy crown Branchlets 

 subtetragonous and sulcate (when dry). 



Leaves rather variable in eize and form. 

 Petioles 1 to 1.4 cm. long, canaliculate, sub- 

 tetragonous, mostly of a light yellow color in young specimens; foveola about 4 

 mm. long, not very prominent. Leaf blades elliptic or oblong, cuneate at base, 

 rounded, acute, or acuminate at tip, 6 to 15 cm. long, 2 to 5 cm. broad, dark green 

 above, paler beneath ; main nerve and primary veins prominent on both faces, the 

 former rounded above and below, the latter numerous (about 60 on each side), single 

 or bifurcate, more or less parallel, closely anastomosed and merging into a thick 

 marginal vein. 



Flowers more or less numerous (up to 14) in the axils of the leaves (these mostly 

 absent at flowering time) on the former year's growth. Male flowers: Pedicels 12 to 

 20 mm. long, slender; sepals 2, ovate-rounded or crescent-shaped, 1 to 2 mm. long, 2 

 to 3 mm. broad, reflexed; petals 4, reflexed, pale yellow, the exterior ones ovate- 

 elongate, about 7 mm. long, 3 to 3.5 mm. broad, more or less regularly rounded at 

 tip, the interior ones ovate to ovate-rounded, 5.5 to 6 mm. long, 3.5 to 4.5 mm. broad, 

 rounded at tip, all obscurely veined and irregularly dark-striate or dotted; etamena 

 25 to 30, biseriate, very shortly adnate at base and of a light yellow color; filaments 

 8977°— 11 3 



Fig. 82.— Rheedia madruno, male flower 

 and details, a, Male flower; b, cal yx ; 

 c, exterior petal; d, interior petal; 

 t>, stamens; /, disk seen from above. 

 Seale 3. 



