''Erythrina schliebenii'' is a species of
legume in the family
Fabaceae. It is found only in
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
. The species is named for German collector and botanist Hans-Joachim Schlieben.
Description
'' Erythrina schliebenii'' grows as a tree tall. Terminal leaflets are
obtrapeziform and measure wide while the lateral leaflets are
rhomboid
Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled.
A parallelogram with sides of equal length (equilateral) is a rhombus but not a rhomboi ...
to
ovate
Ovate may refer to:
* Ovate (egg-shaped) leaves, tepals, or other botanical parts
*Ovate, a type of prehistoric stone hand axe
*Ovates, one of three ranks of membership in the Welsh Gorsedd
*Vates
In modern English, the nouns vates () and ova ...
and measure up to long. The leaflets 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 ...
above with a few hairs on the undersides.
Petioles are prickly and measure up to long.
Inflorescences
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed ...
are many-flowered with a stalk up to long. The
corolla is brightly coloured orange to red.
[
]
Distribution and habitat
''Erythrina schliebenii'' is endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
to Tanzania. The species has a single known population located in forest inland from Kilwa
Kilwa Kisiwani (English: ''Kilwa Island'') is an island, national historic site, and hamlet community located in the township of Kilwa Masoko, the district seat of Kilwa District in the Tanzanian region of Lindi Region in southern Tanzania. K ...
.coral rag
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secr ...
at an altitude of around .
Conservation
Hans-Joachim Schlieben collected samples of ''Erythrina schliebenii'' in 1934 and 1935. The likely type location of the species, at Lake Lutamba near Lindi
Lindi is a historic southern Tanzanian coastal small city and regional capital of the Lindi Region located at the far end of Lindi Bay, on the Indian Ocean in southeastern Tanzania. The town is south of Dar es Salaam and north of Mtwara, t ...
, was cleared for a cashew plantation in the 1940s. The species was initially declared extinct in 1998.[
A small population of fewer than 50 individual trees was rediscovered in March 2012 during botanical explorations in the south-east of Tanzania, inland from Kilwa.][ This population grows in rocky areas unsuited to cultivation. However, the area does not have protected status. The species is not known to be harvested but its ecosystem is threatened by developments such as for infrastructure. , given the estimated population of from 10 to 50 individuals and the lack of a protected area, the IUCN has assigned ''Erythrina schliebenii'' the status of critically endangered.]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2712003
schliebenii
Endemic flora of Tanzania
Plants described in 1935