''Oreomunnea mexicana'' is a species of
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...
in the family
Juglandaceae
The Juglandaceae are a plant family known as the walnut family. They are trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia.
The nine or ten genera in the family have ...
, which grows in the tropical rain forests of Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama at altitudes from 1–1.7 km. Common names include guayabo amarillo and remiendo. The chromosome number is 2n = 32.
Synonymy
''Engelhardia nicaraguensis'' Molina
[IMolina R., A. "Two New Nicaraguan Juglandaceae" ''Fieldiana: Botany'' 31(16)357-359. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL. 1968] and ''E. mexicana'' Standl. are synonyms for ''O. mexicana'' subsp. ''mexicana''.
[D. E. Stone, "New World Juglandaceae, III. A New Perspective of the Tropical Members with Winged Fruits" ''Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden'' 59(2)p. 308. Missouri Botanical Garden Press. 1972]
Tree
''O. mexicana'' grows to 30 m or more, up to 1.5m
DBH, often with buttresses, and superficially resembles a walnut (''
Juglans
Walnut trees are any species of tree in the plant genus ''Juglans'', the type genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are referred to as walnuts. All species are deciduous trees, tall, with pinnate leaves , with 5–25 leaflets ...
sp.''). The bark on a mature tree exfoliates (It does not on ''
O. pterocarpa''). The heartwood is pink. The pith is solid (not chambered, as in ''Juglans''). The buds are protected by leaf primordia, with a fine coating of yellow scales (''O. pterocarpa'' has
glabrous
Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...
primordia.
Leaves
The petioles of the
opposite,
coriaceous
This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary o ...
,
pinnate
Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...
ly compound leaves are
glabrous
Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...
at the base (''O. pterocarpa'' is hirsute). The petioles are short (less than 3.3 cm) as are the petiolules of the opposite leaflets (less than 3 mm). The leaflets, up to 1 dm in length, are 4-5 times as long as they are wide. The upper surface of the leaf is glaucous; the underside has a light yellow-brown peltate bloom.
Flowers and fruit
The
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...
s are
panicles, and may be androgynous (containing a single spike of pistalate flowers flanked by several staminate catkins), entirely staminate, or entirely pistalate. The fruit bears three wings on a globose nut, approximately 7 mm in diameter. Germination is
hypogeal
Hypogeal, hypogean, hypogeic and hypogeous (; ) are biological terms describing an organism's activity below the soil surface.
In botany, a seed is described as showing hypogeal germination when the cotyledons of the germinating seed remai ...
: the first two aerial leaves are pinately compound and opposite; for the next 3-6 dm, the leaves are placed alternately.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q388182
mexicana