180 Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 



Brosimopsis diandra Blake, sp. nov. 



Tree nearly 30 m. high, 0.5 m. thick; young branchlets purplish-brown, 

 spreading-pilosulous, the older gray-barked, glabrous; buds subulate, 

 sparsely sericeous-pubescent, about 5 mm. long; petioles narrowly channeled 

 above, puberulous, 5 to 8 mm. long; stipules subulate, usually deciduous, 

 about 5 mm. long; leaf blades oblong-elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 6 to 11 cm. 

 long, 2 to 3.3 cm. wide, rather gradually and often falcately acuminate to an 

 obtuse tip, at base broadly rounded or obscurely cordate, entire, subcoria- 

 ceous, brownish-green on both sides when dry, glabrous above, beneath 

 obscurely strigillose along the costa and lateral veins and very sparsely so 

 along the veinlets, feather- veined with 10 to 17 pairs of lateral veins, the 

 costa impressed above, prominent beneath, the lateral veins flattish or 

 slightly impressed above, prominulous beneath, diverging at nearly a right 

 angle and uniting near the margin to form a looped submarginal vein, the 

 veinlets rather finely reticulate, flattish above, prominulous beneath; 

 peduncles (of staminate heads) axillary, solitary, erect, puberulous, 4 mm. 

 long; staminate receptacle (before anthesis) subglobose, 4 mm. thick, with 

 a few minute bracts at base, not definitely calyculate, densely covered with 

 flowers and interspersed peltate bracteoles; flowers all staminate, without 

 rudiment of ovary; bracteoles peltate, 1 mm. long, the slender stipe spread- 

 ing-puberulous, the lamina suborbicular, puberulous on both sides and 

 ciliolate; perianth (immature) Imm. long, slightly immersed in the recep- 

 tacle, its segments 4, oblong, somewhat puberulous, cucuUate-imbricate in 

 bud; stamrns always 2, crnct in bud, the glabrous thick-subulate filaments 

 about equaling the subquadrate truncate cordate-based 2-celled anthers. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 704,482, collected in the Rio 

 Grongogy Basin, Bahia, Brazil, altitude 100-500 meters, October-Novem- 

 ber, 1915, by H. M. Curran (no. 25). Duplicate in the herbarium of Yale 

 University. 



The native name of this tree is given as "leiteira" by Mr. Curran. The 

 species is of considerable interest, since it evidently represents a second 

 species of the hitherto monotypic genus Brosimopsis described in 1895 by 

 Spencer L. Moore' from Santa Cruz, Matto Grosso, Brazil. In the type 

 of the genus, B. ladescens S. Moore, the male plant is only a low tree, and 

 the flowers are tetrandrous. 



iTrans. Linn. Soc. Bot. II. 4: 473. pi. 30, f. 6-12, pi. 31. 1895. 



