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| Dinizia jueirana-facao G. P. Lewis & G. S. Siqueira
in Lewis, Siqueira, Banks & Bruneau, 2017.
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Summary
Since its description, almost 100 years ago, the genus Dinizia has been treated as monospecific, comprising the single canopy-emergent species Dinizia excelsa Ducke which grows in non-flooded Amazonian forests of Guyana, Suriname and seven states of northern and central-western Brazil. Dinizia jueirana-facao G. P. Lewis & G. S. Siqueira, which grows in a restricted area of semi-deciduous Atlantic rain forest in Espírito Santo state, Brazil, is described as a new species in the genus. The new species is also a canopy-emergent of impressive stature. We provide descriptions for both species, a key to species identification, a distribution map and the new species is illustrated. Fossil leaves, inflorescences and fruit provide evidence for a Dinizia-like ancestor occurring in south-eastern North America during the Eocene. In contrast to D. excelsa where pollen is dispersed in tetrads, the pollen of D. jueirana-facao is shed in monads. D. jueirana-facao is considered critically endangered following IUCN conservation criteria, whereas D. excelsa is assessed to be of least concern. A lectotype is designated for D. excelsa.
Key Words: Fabaceae, fossils, Neotropics, pollen, taxonomy
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| Fig. 3 Dinizia jueirana-facao. A flowering branch and part of a bipinnate leaf; B leaflets at the base of a single pinna; C hermaphrodite flower; D functionally male flower opened to show stamen filaments and suppressed gynoecium development; E calyx opened out, outer surface; F longitudinal section of hermaphrodite flower to show gynoecium; G petal, outer surface; H stamen; J anther; K fruit; L part of a single valve of dehisced fruit with seeds attached; M seed.
A – J from Folli 4889 (K), K – M from Folli 4484 (K). drawn by Margaret Tebbs.
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Dinizia jueirana-facao G. P. Lewis & G. S. Siqueira sp. nov.
Type: Brazil, Espírito Santo, Linhares, Reserva Natural Vale, 30 July 2004 (fl.), D. A. Folli 4889 (holotype CVRD!; isotypes HUEFS!, K!).
Recognition. Dinizia jueirana-facao differs from its sister species D. excelsa in having leaflets in (9 –) 15 – 23 (– 24) pairs per pinna (vs 7 – 14 pairs), the leaflets completely glabrous (vs puberulent to glabrescent on their lower surface), its individual racemes 28 – 35 × 3 – 4.5 cm (vs 10 – 18 × 1 – 2 cm), buds ellipsoid to obovoid (vs globose), flowers 8.5 – 10 mm long (vs 4 – 5 mm long), its floral bracts spathulate and caducous (vs lanceolate and often persistent), its fruit woody and dehiscent along both sutures (vs indehiscent), seeds 25 – 30 × 16 – 19 mm (vs (10 –) 14 – 15 × 6 – 7 mm); and pollen in monads (vs tetrads).
Distribution. Dinizia jueirana-facao is currently known only from two locations, one (19°08'52.0"S, 40°05'16.4"W) in the Reserva Natural Vale in Linhares, northern Espirito Santo state, Brazil, and the second (19°05'12.1"S, 40°10'41.2"W) just outside the reserve in the surroundings of the small hamlet of Santa Luzia Sooretama. Map 1.
Habitat. An emergent tree in semi-deciduous forest and mata ciliar in the Reserva Natural Vale, an area of 22,000 hectares of pristine Atlantic Forest. This is the largest protected area of semi-deciduous forest in eastern Brazil. Also known from mata de tabuleiro, in the surroundings of Sooretama, just outside the Vale Reserve. Growing at elevations of 40 – 150 m above sea level.
Etymology. The species name is taken directly from the local name, “jueirana-facão”, for the tree in Espirito Santo. In the Reserva Natural Vale, the large legume tree Parkia pendula (Willd.) Benth ex Walp. is known as jueirana-vermelha and the new Dinizia species, which has a very similar bark which breaks off in large woody plates, but much larger fruits, is locally differentiated by replacing vermelha (Portuguese for red) with facão (Portuguese for large knife or machete), because the woody fruits of D. jueirana-facao have the appearance of a machete sheath or scabbard. According to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (McNeill et al. 2012) an epithet can be a word in apposition (Art. 23.1) and taken from any source whatsoever (Art. 23.2), but the Code does not give clear guidance on diacritical signs, just ruling (Art. 60.6) that “the [diacritical] signs are to be suppressed with the necessary transcription of the letters so modified” but without elaborating on what “necessary transcription” means beyond the cited examples, which do not include ã. We thus transcribe the ã as a in the specific epithet here chosen for the new species.
Jueirana is thought to be derived from the Tupi word yuá-rana. Yuá (or Juá) is a Tupi common name for several different plant species, especially those in the Solanaceae with round, spiny fruits (Andrade 2006; Sampaio 1987). Rana in Tupi means similar to, so yuá-rana or jueirana means false juá (or similar to juá), although there is little resemblance between the new legume species and any Solanaceae. A number of place names in Brazil are derived from jueirana or an orthographic variant of this.
Notes. Dinizia jueirana-facao, as currently known, is a narrowly restricted species endemic to a small area of Atlantic forest in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo. Although a tree of shorter stature, and lacking buttresses, many of its vegetative and reproductive morphological characteristics are greater in number and/or size than those seen in its widespread Amazonian sister species, D. excelsa. D. jueirana-facao has leaflets in (9 –) 15 – 23 (– 24) pairs per pinna (7 – 14 pairs per pinna in D. excelsa), the leaflets glabrous (vs puberulent to glabrescent on their lower surface), its individual racemes 28 – 35 × 3 – 4.5 cm (vs 10 – 18 × 1 – 2 cm) in open flower, its flower buds ellipsoid to obovoid (vs globose), its flowers 8.5 – 10 mm long (vs 4 – 5 mm long), its floral bracts spathulate and caducous (vs lanceolate and often persistent), its fruit woody and dehiscent along both sutures (vs indehiscent), its seeds 25 – 30 × 16 – 19 mm (vs (10 –) 14 – 15 × 6 – 7 mm), and its pollen in monads (vs tetrads). D. jueirana-facao is critically endangered and presently known from less than 25 trees in two small areas, of which only one locality is inside a protected reserve. The type collection of the new species is from one of the largest trees growing inside the reserve.
G. P. Lewis, G. S. Siqueira, H. Banks and A. Bruneau. 2017. The Majestic Canopy-Emergent Genus Dinizia (Leguminosae: Caesalpinioideae), Including A New Species Endemic to the Brazilian State of Espírito Santo. Kew Bulletin. 72:48. DOI: 10.1007/s12225-017-9720-7
Probably the world's heaviest living organism described in 2017? kew.org/blogs/kew-science/probably-the-worlds-heaviest-living-organism-described-in-2017
New tree species in Brazil probably the world's heaviest living organism phy.so/432289612 via @physorg_com
