Pelliciera Planch. & Triana, 1862

Pelliciera Planch. & Triana View in CoL — Map 1

Pelliciera Planch.& Triana in Triana & Planch.( June 1862) 380 (‘ Pelliceria ’); Benth. & Hook.f. ( 7 Aug. 1862) 186; Hemsl. (1879) 96; Kobuski (1951) 257. — Type: P. rhizophorae Planch. & Triana.

Etymology. The genus name commemorates the French prelate,diplomat and naturalist, Bishop Guillaume Pellicier (1527–1568) of Montpellier, whom King Francis I sent as an ambassador to Venice, after Scévole de Sainte- Marthe ‘the most learned man of his century’.

Trees of mangrove tidal wetlands, columnar, somewhat tiered; crowns often acute; branches distally arcuate, with conspicu- ous circular leaf scars and stubs of stalks of fallen fruits at intervals. Bark dark, roughly fissured, grey; stem slender. Trunk buttressed at base, swollen, markedly fluted below, ridges each originating as an acropetally developed series of short aerial roots; roots at stem base, no pneumatophores. Foliage comprised of 7–11 leaves arranged spirally in a rosette around the apical shoot, phyllotaxis regular, 2/5. Stipules and bud scales absent. Leaves subsessile; blades asymmetric, oblonglanceolate, broadest at the middle, glabrous, leathery to coriaceous, base abruptly narrowed to the insertion with 2 glands, occasionally one (extrafloral nectary), margins initially with a series of prominent but ephemeral glandular-denticulate glands (presumed salt glands), apex bluntly rounded, surfaces dark glossy green; young leaves involute in bud. Flowers hermaphroditic, axillary, up to 14 cm wide at anthesis; lower single bract broadly oblong, green, with or without 2 glands towards base of pedicel; bracteoles 2, opposite, foliaceous, involute, white or reddish, without basal glands; sepals 5, imbricate, unequal, free, caducous, mostly whitish; petals 5, free, entire, ligulate, white or reddish, much longer than sepals, tapered distally to a blunt point; stamens 5, free, up to 6 cm long, alternate with petals, filaments thread-like, closely appressed (but not adnate) within grooves of the ovary, anthers long sagittate, subequal, 2-thecate, dehiscing by elongated slits, connective narrow, projected into an apical mucro; pistil long-conical, almost equally divided into a ridged ovary and a smooth style, the ovary imperfectly 2-celled, occasionally 1-celled by abortion, with a single large, campylotropous ovule in each cell; stigma punctiform. Fruits coriaceous capsules, napiform in lateral outline, irregularly longitudinally furrowed, apically tapering to a point with the persistent style remnant as a woody but brittle beak, at first green but (with maturity) becoming reddish brown with resinous pustules, inner layer spongy. Seeds consisting solely of two large cotyledons; endosperm lacking; radicle pointed; plumule hooked, long, slender, reddish; germination semi-epigeal, rapid separation of cotyledons and radicle, and straightening of plumule.

Distribution — Two species in the Atlantic-East Pacific region occurring along both Atlantic and Pacific coasts of southern Central America and Northern South America.