Vangueria cyanescens Robyns [family RUBIACEAE]

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora Zambesiaca
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
FZ, Vol 5, Part 2, (1998) Author: D. Bridson
Names
Vangueria cyanescens Robyns [family RUBIACEAE], in Bull. Jard. Bot. État 11: 284 (1928). Type from Namibia.
Information
Shrub or small tree, 0.8–5 m tall, often multi-stemmed and sometimes with a spreading crown; stems slender, glabrous, with wine-red bark, smooth when young but soon becoming powdery.Leaves 6.2–11(15.5) × 2.2–4.5 cm, narrowly to broadly elliptic, acute to shortly acuminate at the apex, cuneate or less often rounded at the base, entirely glabrous or sometimes with a few scattered hairs; lateral nerves in 5–6 main pairs; tertiary nerves moderately finely reticulate, often drying blue-black; petiole 2–5 mm long, often drying blackish; stipules on young stems with base c. 2 mm long and appendage c. 5 mm long; older stipules congested with dingy-coloured hairs inside.Inflorescences often appear before the leaves are fully expanded, sparsely pubescent to pubescent, 5–13-flowered; main peduncle up to 2.5 mm long; pedicels about 2 mm long, save those of central flower of inflorescence which may be longer.Calyx tube c. 1 mm long, pubescent or glabrous; lobes 1.2–1.8 mm long, narrowly oblong, usually glabrous.Corolla obtuse to slightly acuminate in bud; greenish-cream, glabrous; tube c. 4 mm long; lobes 2.5–3.5 mm long, acuminate.Style 5–6 mm long; pollen presenter yellow, 1.2 mm long, cylindrical.Fruits green to brownish, 1.8–2 cm diameter, subglobose; pyrenes 4–5, each c. 20 mm long.
Habitat
Kalahari Sand in Baikiaea mutemwa, in thicket on termite mounds, and in old gardens
Altitude range
930–1110 m.
1110
930
Distribution
Zambia W Ndola, fl. 14.xii.1953, Fanshawe 591 (K; NDO).Zambia B 14.4 km ESE of Kaoma (Mankoya), fl. 21.xi.1959, Drummond & Cookson 6700 (K; SRGH); Sesheke, Masese, fr. 26.xii.1952, Angus 1034 (FHO; K).Botswana N Ngamiland, 1930–31, Curson 739 (PRE).
Distribution (external)
Angola
Namibia
Notes
This taxon is closely related to the pubescent V. proschii and could equally well be considered a variety of it. Although the two taxa are more or less sympatric, V. proschii has a wider distribution. In the first specimen cited above there are a few scattered hairs on the venation beneath and a very few hairs on some corollas, but other “Barotseland” and Angolan material has glabrous leaves and corollas, like the type of V. cyanescens. F. White 2012, a scrappy sterile specimen from Senenga in Zambia, with large leaves c. 20 ? 10 cm is perhaps an odd growth form of the species. Some specimens from the Ndola area in Zambia W: [fl. bud, 12.xii.1953, Fanshawe 576 (K; NDO); fl. bud 14.xii.1953, Fanshawe 596 (K; NDO); and fr. 7.iii.1954, Fanshawe 951 (K; NDO)] seem intermediate between V. cyanescens and V. madagascariensis. They have the powdery bark and densely tufted stipules of V. cyanescens but the inflorescence is more like that of V. madagascariensis. This material differs from V. apiculata as the stems are not shiny and conspicuously lenticellate, and both the petioles and calyx lobes are longer. The name V. cyanescens has frequently been applied to specimens from South Africa (Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal) and Swaziland, and has consequently been confused in literature with V. madagascariensis and/or V. randii subsp. chartacea (e.g. Pooley, Trees of Natal, Zululand & Transkei: 470, fig. (1993)).
Vangueria cyanescens Robyns [family RUBIACEAE]
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