safford: new genus rolliniopsis 



199 



Leaf blades broadly elliptical 



Flowers minute ; young branches f erruginous-tomen- 



tose; leaf blades acute 3. R. parviflora. 



Flowers medium-sized (winged petals about 1 cm. 

 long); 3'oung branches fulvous-tomentose; leaf 

 blades round-tipped 4. R. leptopetala. 



1. Rolliniopsis discreta Safford, sp. nov. 



A small tree, 6 to 9 meters high. Vegetative branches not observed; 

 flowering branches slender, grayish brown, thickly dotted with gray 

 lenticels and bearing prominent leaf scars. Leaf blades oblong-ellipti- 

 cal, rounded or obtuse at the base, usually rounded or obtuse or some- 

 times slightly refuse at the apex, variable in size, when normal 7 to 8 

 cm. long, 2.5 to 3 cm. broad, with 7 to 9 nerves on each side; smaller 

 blades near extremities of branchlets 5 cm. long, 1.5 cm. broad; petioles ' 

 5 to 7 mm. long, often recurved, broadly 

 grooved above, clothed with fine gray- 

 ish tomentum; blades membranaceous 

 but firm, minutely tomentose with 

 short whitish hairs on both surfaces, 

 more densely so beneath; midrib im- 

 pressed above, prominent beneath and 

 tomentose like the petiole. Flowers 

 (fig. 1) solitary or in 2's or 3's; pe- 

 duncles extra-axillary or opposite a 

 leaf, straight or curved and wirelike, 

 10 to 17 mm. long, clothed with minute 

 reddish brown tomentum, subtended 

 at the base by a small sessile tomentose 

 bracteole and usually bearing a second 

 minute clasping bracteole at or below 

 the middle; calyx 3-lobed, clothed outside with reddish tomentum like 

 that of the peduncle, the divisions broadly triangular, 5 mm. broad, 

 3 mm. high; corolla reddish brown, the 3 lobes corresponding to outer 

 petals compressed laterally into thin orbicular vertical wings 1 1 to 12 mm. 

 in diameter, minutely tomentellous (as seen under the microscope) , the 



3 lobes corresponding to inner petals minute, grayish-puberulent, 

 connivent. Stamens numerous, minute (0.6 mm. long, 0.2 mm. broad), 

 with the reddish brown connective expanded above the two straw- 

 colored parallel pollen sacs. Gyncecium composed of about 50 carpels, 

 these remaining distinct and developing into a cluster of small drupes. 

 Mature fruit cluster 4 cm. in diameter; indurated receptacle 8 to 12 mm. 

 in diameter; drupes pyriform, sessile, often somewhat oblique, 12 to 

 14 mm. long, 7 to 8 mm. in diameter, rounded at the apex and termi- 

 nating in a short oblique point, gradually narrowing toward the base; 

 pericarp bright orange, turning dark brown in drying; seeds pyriform 

 or obovoid, enveloped in a thin layer of aromatic pulp, 9 to 10 mm. long, 



4 to 5 mm. in diameter, the testa light brown, slightly wrinkled by 



Fig. 1. Flower of Rolliniopsis 

 discreta, with portion removed to 

 show crowded stamens surround- 

 ing the central gyncecium. Scale 

 about 1.5. 



