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Family: Lauraceae
Sigua
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Descripción: Árbol de 15 a 30 m de alto. Tronco con raíces tablares pequeñas y a veces con brotes en la base. Corteza exterior gris y cubierta de lenticelas negras. Ramitas terminales anguladas. Hojas simples y alternas, de 5-22 x 3-6 cm, elípticas a oblanceoladas, con ápice agudo o acuminado, bordes enteros y base decurrente. Las hojas presentan domacios en las axilas de las nervaduras del envés. Pecíolo de 1-2 cm de largo. La especie es dioica. Flores verde pálidas o amarillentas, aromáticas. Frutos en drupas elipsoidales, de 1-1.5 cm de largo, verdes y con una copa basal. Datos Ecológicos: La especie crece a bajas y medianas elevaciones, en bosques húmedos o muy húmedos. En Panamá se encuentra en las provincias de Colón y Panamá. Florece y fructifica de julio a septiembre. Las flores son visitadas por abejas y otros insectos. Las semillas son dispersadas por animales, principalmente aves que se alimentan de los frutos maduros. Especies Parecidas: A menudo se confunde con LK ocotpu Ocotea puberula LK2 , pero en O. puberula las ramitas no son anguladas y las hojas no tienen domacios en las axilas de las nervaduras del envés. Usos: La madera es empleada en construcciones locales, postes de cercas y mangos de herramientas. Sigua Dioecious tree, to 30 m tall, to 45 cm dbh, conspicuously buttressed; bark coarse, conspicuously lenticellate, becoming moderately fissured on exposed parts above; branches mostly from near apex, widely spreading; young stems densely ferruginous-tomentose, with 2 ribs below the petioles; sap with +/- pungent odor. Leaves drying blackened; petioles mostly 1-2 cm long, densely appressed-puberulent; blades narrowly elliptic to broadly oblanceolate, acute to acuminate with the acumen broadly rounded, narrowly acute to attenuate at base, 10-22 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, glossy and glabrous above except along the prominently raised, squarish midrib, densely and obscurely appressed-pubescent below, with slitlike pit domatia near the axils, the domatia usually puberulent within, directed at a sharp angle to the lateral veins; major lateral veins in about 7 pairs, the reticulate veins obscure. Panicles axillary or terminal, to 13 cm long; flowers, pedicels, and inflorescence branches densely short-pubescent; flowers unisexual; staminate flowers not available; pistillate flowers to 1.7 mm long, about as wide as long, greenish-white at anthesis; perianth lobes 6, erect to spreading, ovate, ca 1.5 mm long, densely papillose-puberulent on inside; outer series of stamens 6, ca 0.7 mm long, the filaments short, weakly pubescent on outside near base, the glands +/- orbicular and flattened, the inner stamens 3, the filaments about half as long as anthers, pubescent; anthers +/- quadrangular, pubescent inside on basal half; ovary ovoid, +/- glabrous; style short; stigma conspicuous, held just above the inner stamens. Fruits ellipsoid, to 14 mm long and 8 mm wide, the basal cupule subflattened, ca 5 mm wide. Aviles 9, Croat 16201, 16515 Bolivian specimens bearing this name may be the same, but the leaves lack the slitlike domatia in the axils of the lateral veins. Panama and the Guianas, but no doubt more wide spread in South America. In Panama, known only from tropical moist forest on BCI. |
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