Luehea speciosa, with no commonly used English name, is an attractive tree species native mostly to tropical regions of the New World. It belongs to the family Malvaceae.
Description
Here are distinctive features of Luehea speciosa:
The tree grows up to with a trunk diameter at chest level of .
Deciduous leaves with petioles up to have egg-shaped to elliptic blades up to long and half that wide, with sharp tips and somewhat rounded bases. Blade margins are sawtoothed and both surfaces bear hairlike "star-shaped" trichomes, which grow more densely on the undersurface.
Branched, panicle-type inflorescences up to appear at or near branch tips.
Flowers on pedicels up to long bear slender sepals up to long and conspicuous, pale-yellow petals up to and wide. Many stamens group in 5 or 10 clusters, surrounding a style up to long.
Somewhat woody, densely hairy, capsule-type fruits up to long and wide are conspicuously 5-angled with rounded ridges. Seeds are very numerous, winged, flattened and about and wide.
It can be hard to distinguish Luehea speciosa from Luehea candida, which occurs over much of the same distribution area, and in similar habitats. Leaves of Luehea speciosa tend to have their edges broadly curved downward, while leaves of L. candida are flat. Also, in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Luehea speciosa flowers all year round except in August and September, while Luehea candida flowers from March to September.
Distribution
Luehea speciosa occurs in southern Mexico, Cuba, all of Central America, and in South America south into Peru, Bolivia and northern Brazil.
Habitat
In Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Luehea speciosa inhabits dry forests and moist forests, including forests regularly flooded. In Costa Rica it occurs commonly in various forest types and often is seen along roadsides.
Human uses
In construction
In the Mexican state of Veracruz, the wood of Luehea speciosa is considered hard to work with, but is used in general construction, as with making furniture parts, for floors and for making plywood.
Ecological restoration
Luehea speciosa is appropriate for use in soil conservation in tropical forests experiencing extended dry seasons. Commonly it is planted in mixed tropical woodlands and agroforestry systems.
Miscellaneous other uses
Among the Mayan people of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula it is a multi-purpose tree. Beyond uses mentioned above, its leaves are considered as forage for livestock, it is used in traditional medicine, including as an antiemetic, its flowers produce nectar and pollen for honeybees, its wood is burned as firewood and used as fenceposts, it is a valued shade tree, and resin from the tree is sought.
Taxonomy
Luehea speciosa was formally named and described in 1801 by Carl Ludwig Willdenow, from a plant collected by "Herr Bredemeyer", who found the tree "... on the summit of the high mountains between Guyana and Caracas, on stony, loamy soil." The mentioned Herr Bredemeyer was Franz (Johann Christian) Bredemeyer, an Austrian botanical collector and gardener known by Willdenow, who in 1786–1788 collected plants around Caracas and the Coastal Cordillera as part of an Austrian state-sponsored expedition. Willdenow named the genus Bredemeyera after him. Thus Bredemeyer collected plants in Venezuela well before Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland were there during their American Expedition of 1799–1804
Etymology
The genus name Luehea honors Carl Emil von der Lühe, a German poet-jurist and botanist, Danish chamberlain and bailiff, and imperial government councilor in Lower Austria.
The species name speciosa is the feminine form of the Latin adjective speciosus, meaning "beautiful" or "splendid".
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References