Eumachia expanded, a pantropical genus distinct from Psychotria (Rubiaceae, Palicoureeae)
Author
Taylor, Charlotte M.
Author
Razafimandimbison, Sylvain G.
Author
Barrabé, Laure
Author
Jardim, Jomar G.
Author
Barbosa, Maria Regina V.
text
Candollea
2017
2017-07-20
72
2
289
318
journal article
20720
10.15553/c2017v722a6
0980a4bf-3c86-4008-a974-93416fab31a8
2235-3658
5721990
Eumachia
DC., Prodr.
4: 478. 1830
.
Ξ
Psychotria
sect.
Eumachia
A.C. Sm. in Bernice P. Bishop Mus. Bull. 141: 151. 1936
.
Typus
:
Eumachia carnea
(G. Forst.) DC.
=
Margaris
Griseb
., Cat. Pl. Cub. 134. 1866
[nom. illeg.] [not
Margaris
DC.
]. Ξ
Margaritopsis
C. Wright
in
Sauvalle in
Anales Acad. Ci. Med. Habana 6: 146. 1869
[nom. nov].
Typus:
Margaritopsis acuifolia
C. Wright
Ξ
Eumachia acuifolia
(C. Wright) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr
.
=
Mapouria
ser.
Chaenotrichae
Müll. Arg.
in
Flora 59: 496. 1876
.
Lectotypus
(designated here):
Mapouria chaenotricha
(DC.) Müll. Arg
.
Ξ
Eumachia chaenotricha
(DC.) Razafim. & C.M. Taylor
,
syn. nov
.
=
Readea
Gillespie
in
Bernice P. Bishop Mus. Bull. 74: 35. 1930
.
Typus:
Readea membranacea
Gillespie
Ξ
Eumachia membranacea
(Gillespie) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
=
Chytropsia
Bremek.
in
Recueil Trav. Bot. Néerl. 31: 291. 1934
. Ξ
Psychotria
sect.
Chytropsia
(Bremek.) Steyerm.
in
Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 23: 484. 1972
.
Typus:
Chytropsia astrellantha
(Wernham) Bremek.
Ξ
Eumachia astrellantha
(Wernham) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
=
Chazaliella
E.M.A. Petit & Verdc
.
in
Kew Bull. 30: 268. 1975
.
Typus:
Chazaliella abrupta
(Hiern) E.M.A. Petit & Verdc.
Ξ
Eumachia abrupta
(Hiern) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
Eumachia
includes 83 species of shrubs and small trees found in seasonal to wet vegetation at low to middle elevations in most tropical regions (
Fig. 1
;
BARRABÉ et al., 2012
: fig. 4).
Eumachia
is found widely in tropical continental Africa (20 species), the American tropics (27 species), southeast Asia, northeastern
Australia
, New
Guinea
, and numerous Pacific Islands (36 species).
Eumachia
apparently is absent in
Madagascar
and the Indian subcontinent (
RAZAFIMANDIMBISON et al., 2014
). The number of species of
Eumachia
in Asia, New
Guinea
, and the Pacific region is higher than previously estimated, and moves the center of diversity of the genus to this region.
Eumachia
is characterized by raphides in its tissues; a woody habit, as a shrub or sometimes small tree; a characteristic yellowish green drying color of the vegetative structures and inflorescence axes; opposite leaves; stipules that are interpetiolar or sometimes united around the stem, at least partially persistent, and often bear a caducous gland on the tip of each segment; terminal inflorescences that are basically cymose with the axes and bracts green to whitened; four- or five-merous flowers that are generally distylous; salverform to funnelform, white to cream or yellowish green corollas with valvate aestivation and usually barbate throats; bilocular ovaries with the ovules solitary and basal in each locule; drupaceous, ellipsoid to subglobose, orange to red fruits; pyrenes that are smooth to ribbed abaxially, plane to concave adaxially (i.e., without a longitudinal groove), and have hard walls that lack the ethanol-soluble pigment found in
Psychotria
and marginal PGS’s (
PIESSCHAERT, 2001
); and seeds with the endosperm entire (i.e., not ruminate). The stipules vary morphologically among the species but all have a characteristic
Eumachia
form: they either become hard and yellowed to ocher with age and then slowly break off in fragments, or their top portion is deciduous and their basal portion persistent. The non-ruminate endosperm sometimes has a single T-shaped adaxial intrusion (
PIESSCHAERT, 2001
). Most of these features are general characters of the tribe
Palicoureeae
, and thus as noted by ANDERSSON (2001)
Eumachia
is not easy to diagnose morphologically. Dried specimens are generally recognizable by the combination of their yellowish green color, yellowed to ocher fragmented stipules, terminal inflorescences, small to medium-sized white flowers with usually barbate corolla throats, orange to red drupaceous fruits, and raphides in the tissues.
Several morphological features vary widely in
Eumachia
, and significantly more variation is found among the Pacific species than in other regions. The stipules range in all regions from triangular to bilobed on each interpetiolar side, and in a few species they are initially entire and later split longitudinally to become bilobed; additionally some Pacific species have stipules that are fused into a tube with two short apical lobes [e.g.,
E. archboldiana
(Fosberg) Barrabé et al.
]. Most
Eumachia
species
have somewhat flattened stems with a medial longitudinal ridge on each interpetiolar side (
TAYLOR, 2005: 174
,
Fig. 1
), but some have rounded smooth internodes. Species that grow in seasonal vegetation in all regions often develop corky stems. The inflorescences of
Eumachia
show similar variation to many other
Rubiaceae
genera, with the arrangement basically dichasially cymose and ranging from lax [e.g.,
E. cymuligera
(Müll. Arg.) Razafim. & C.M. Taylor,
E. leptothyrsa
(Miq.) Barrabé et al.
] to short or contracted into a subcapitate head [e.g.,
E. cephalantha
(Müll. Arg.) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
,
E. kappleri
(Miq.) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
]. The corollas range from
2 mm
long to around
2 cm
long. As documented by
BARRABÉ et al. (2012)
, the pyrenes of all the species have PGS’s located on their margins, and some species additionally have abaxial PGS’s. A few specimens show all of the characters of
Eumachia
except they dry blackened rather than yellowish green; similar variation in drying color is found in some other genera of
Rubiaceae
(e.g.,
Palicourea
Aubl.
).
The pollen of
Eumachia
has been documented for only a few species, and is variously aperturate or inaperturate.
ANDERSSON (2001)
initially reported the pollen of this genus to be aperturate based on the species studied by him and by
JOHANSSON (1992)
.
JOHANSSON (1992)
considered the aperturate pollen of the species of
Eumachia
that he studied to differ in form, and classified it variously in his
type
XII (2 spp.),
type
XVI (5 species), and
type
XIX (
1 sp.
). However
BARRABÉ et al. (2012)
found that
Psychotria leptothyrsa
Miq.
also belongs to
Eumachia
, and JOHANSSON documented the pollen of this species as inaperturate and included it in his
type
XX. Two other species with inaperturate pollen have been suggested to be related to species of
Eumachia
, but these other species are not included in this genus here. One other species that JOHANSSON classified as having
type
XX pollen,
Psychotria hunteri
(Horne ex Baker) A.C. Sm.
, was considered by SMITH & DARWIN (1988) to be related to
Eumachia carnea
but more recent study (BARRABÉ, pers. obs.) finds that this species is related instead to a Fijian group of
Psychotria
. Inaperturate pollen of JOHANSSON’S
type
XXI was documented in another species that Steyermark included in the
Chytropsia
group,
Psychotria spiciflora
Standl.
, but that species belongs to
Palicourea
(
TAYLOR, 2015
)
.
Fig. 1. –
Photographs of
Eumachia
DC.
A, B.
Eumachia lyciiflora
(Baill.) Barrabé, C.M. Taylor & Razafim.
;
C.
Eumachia microdon
(DC.) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
;
D.
Eumachia boliviana
(Standl.) Delprete & J.H. Kirkbr.
;
E, F.
Eumachia depauperata
(Müll. Arg.) M.R. Barbosa & M.S. Pereira
;
G.
Eumachia oleoides
(Baill.) Barrabé, C.M. Taylor &
Razafim.
[
A:
Barrabé & Barriole 747
;
B:
Barrabé 589
;
C:
Coronado 6251
;
D:
Araujo 1247
;
E-G:
Unvouchered photos] [Photos:
A, B:
L. Barrabé;
C:
O.M. Montiel;
D:
C. Davidson;
E, F:
J. Jardim;
G:
H. Vandrot]
Study of the secondary chemistry of the tribes
Psychotrieae
and
Palicoureeae
is just beginning (MARTINS & NUNEZ, 2015), but
BERGER (2012)
surveyed several species of
Palicoureeae
. He suggested for the first time that some chemical constituents, in particular cyclotryptamine alkaloids, may be another characteristic of
Eumachia
that distinguishes it from other genera of
Palicoureeae
, which appear to lack these compounds. His study was complicated by limited species sampling and lack of clarification as to which
Psychotria
species
should be classified in
Eumachia
, particularly among the Pacific species where more chemical variation was found, so further study will be needed to confirm this.
A synoptic treatment of the African species of
Eumachia
, including a key and nomenclatural synonymy, was presented by
VERDCOURT (1977
; as
Chazaliella
). A comparable synoptic treatment of the Neotropical species was presented by
TAYLOR (2005
; as
Margaritopsis
). The Asian, Australian, New Guinean, and Pacific species of
Eumachia
have never been treated together before now. Lectotypifications for several Neotropical names were made by DELPRETE & KIRKBRIDE (2015).
Most of the 12 species included in
Mapouria
ser.
Chaenotrichae
(
MÜLLER, 1881: 416-422
)
have been more recently classified in
Margaritopsis
(
TAYLOR, 2005
; some of them as synonymous names). No types were designated by
MÜLLER (1876
,
1881
) for his infrageneric groups. Based on the general characterization of
Mapouria
ser.
Chaenotrichae
and the name Müller gave it,
M. chaenotricha
is here designated as the
lectotype
for this series. Two species originally classified in this series,
M. riedeliana
Müll. Arg.
and
M. mandiocana
Müll. Arg.
, belong to
Psychotria
; nine of the original species belong to
Eumachia
; and the identity of the remaining name,
Mapouria vestita
(Presl) Müll. Arg.
, is not yet clear.