Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical East Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical East Africa, page 1, (1967) Author: J. P. M. Brenan
Names
BRACHYSTEGIA microphylla Harms [family LEGUMINOSAE-CAESALPINIOIDEAE], in E.J. 28: 397 (1900); Burtt Davy & Hutch, in K.B. 1923: 153 (1923); L.T.A.: 716 (1930); C. H. N. Jackson in Journ. S. Afr. Bot. 6: 35, 39 (1940); B. D. Burtt in Journ. Ecol. 30: 74–76, 78, 82–85, 109, 116, 141, t. 2, 5, 7 (1942); T.T.C.L.: 91 (1949), haud tamen qua syn.; Hoyle in F.C.B. 3: 477 (1952); Hoyle & White in F.F.N.R.: 115, 118, fig. 22/L (1962). Type: Tanganyika, Iringa District, Ndegere, Goetze 603 (B, holo. †, K, fragm.!)
BRACHYSTEGIA tamarindoïdes [family LEGUMINOSAE-CAESALPINIOIDEAE], [sensu T.T.C.L.: 90, 91 (1949), pro parte, et in herb, mult., non Benth.]
Information
Tree 4–20(–27) m. high; young bark smooth, pale silver-grey, soon flaking off thinly on bole and main branches, exposing yellowish or buff-coloured patches; older bark becoming rough, darker grey or brownish, flaking in thicker scales exposing large lenticellate patches; crown usually spreading, flat-topped; upper branches divaricate; branchlets ± horizontal with delicate fern-like foliage. Young branchlets usually pubescent to tomentose, brown or rusty, soon grey with small circular lenticels. Stipules fugacious (rarely seen), free, linear to filiform, 0.5–1 cm. long, with or without a small lateral lobe at the base. Leaves with (17–)25–60(–72) closely pectinate pairs of leaflets, the middle pairs the largest; petiole 1–4 mm. long; rhachis very slender, channelled, with ± conspicuous wings and often local stipellar expansions, usually obscured by spreading, often rusty pubescence; leaflets linear to very narrowly triangular, often falcate, (3–)5–15(–20) × 1–2(–3.5) mm., acute to rounded, often minutely apiculate, obliquely truncate to subcordate at base; midrib subcentral, very slender; surfaces usually glabrous, more rarely appressed-puberulous, but usually ciliolate. Panicles terminal or terminal and axillary, 2–4 × 2–4 cm., brown-, rusty- or tawny-pubescent to -tomentose. Flowers small, greenish-white or yellowish; bracteoles 4–6 × 3–4.5 mm., puberulous to tomentose. Tepals apparently (4–)5 only, free or 2–3 partly connate, always (?) all sepaloid, broad and imbricate, up to 2 × 1.5 mm., shortly and sparsely to subdensely and (for their size) rather long-ciliate, otherwise glabrous. Stamens ± 10, usually free, 8–10 mm. long. Ovary 2.5–3 × 0.7–1 mm. Pod thinly woody, smooth, up to 12 × 3 cm. (usually much smaller), immature drying pale or mid-brown, mature blackish-purple and usually pruinose, with numerous but minute and obscure pale lenticels; sutural wings thin, spreading, each up to 4 mm. wide. Fig. 38, p. 175.
Altitude range
300–2200 m., mainly in highlands.
Distribution
TANGANYIKA Handeni District Kideleko road, fl. 14 Jan., fr. 7 April 1954, Faulkner 1325 ! & 1401 !TANGANYIKA Mpanda District 11 km. on Uruwira-Nyonga road, fr. 3 July 1949, Hoyle & Greenway 1060 !TANGANYIKA SE. Tabora District Itulu Hill, fl. Sept. 1951, Groome 16 !TANGANYIKA Newala escarpment, fl. Nov. 1953, Eggeling 6734 !
Distribution (external)
; Congo Republic
Mozambique
Malawi
Zambia (and ? Rhodesia)
Notes
VARIATION. In T.T.C.L.: 91 (1949), B. microphylla was cited as a “form” of the Angolan B. tamarindoïdes. The latter, although belonging to the same group, is a complex of uncertain status which now seems to be very closely related to B. utilis. Although a manifestly distinct species, B. microphylla varies considerably in number of leaflets on normal specimens, without significant change in other characters, in each area from which several gatherings are available. There is also a vague, clinal variation in maximum number of leaflets per specimen, from 40–72 pairs in E. and NE. Tanganyika to 25–45 pairs in the west and south-west. Occasional specimens, otherwise normal but (for the locality) with exceptionally broad and/or few leaflets, interrupt this cline at several points. Some of these are locally associated with highly aberrant material showing various sizes and numbers of leaflets intermediate in shape, venation and indumentum between local forms of B. microphylla and 1, B. spiciformis; the flowering specimens sometimes have simple racemes with intermediate flowers showing various abnormalities usually associated with hybridity. One of these was described by Taubert as a species which is now more appropriately called B. × fischeri Taub. (pro sp.) and enlarged to include other collections of similar apparent origin. These are dealt with in some detail below under 5 × 1. Other hybrids, very similar in appearance at first sight, seem to occur less often with 2, B. bussei, 6, B. floribunda and 7, B. manga (see below under 2 × 5, 6 × 5 and 7 × 5 respectively). For putative hybrids with 3, B. utilis see under the latter.