33. SPARATTOSPERMA Mart. ex Meisn., Pl. Vasc. Gen. 2: 208. 1840.

Medium-sized to large trees, the branchlets terete to subtetragonal, lacking interpetiolar glandular fields or pseudostipules, usually sticky-vernicose as are the leaves and inflorescence. Leaves palmately 3-5-foliolate. Inflorescence a terminal panicle with a rather well-developed central rachis. Calyx apiculate in bud, irregularly splitting, usually 2- or 3-labiate or subspathaceous at anthesis, glabrous or slightly puberulous near base; corolla white or pale pink, very broadly tubular-campanulate above a narrow basal tube, the tube glabrous outside, the lobes puberulous. Stamens glabrous, the thecae straight, divaricate. Ovary narrowly oblong; ovules multiseriate; disk cylindrical. Fruit a linear-cylindric, ± terete capsule, longitudinally costate, glandular-lepidote or apparently glabrous. Seeds long and narrow, the hyaline-membranous wings fragmented into hair-like capillary segments.

Tropical South America; 2 species, 1 in Venezuela.

Sparattosperma leucanthum (Vell.) K. Schum. in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. 4(3b): 235. 1894. -Bignonia leucantha Vell., Fl. Flumin. 251. 1825 [1829].

Tree to 25 m. Granitic outcrops, semideciduous to evergreen lowland forests, 50-200 m; Bolívar (35 km from Caicara on road to Puerto Ayacucho, Río Parguaza basin). Amazonian Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay. Fig. 413.

Sparattosperma leucanthum resembles Tabebuia but differs in the seed wings split into capillary trichomes, and no Venezuelan Tabebuia has the varnish-like secretion that usually covers young growth and leaves of Sparattosperma.


previous page back to the Table of Contents next page