Bagassa | |
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Scientific classification ![]() | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Rosids |
Order: | Rosales |
Family: | Moraceae |
Tribe: | Moreae |
Genus: | Bagassa Aubl. |
Species: | B. guianensis |
Binomial name | |
Bagassa guianensis Aubl. | |
Synonyms | |
Piper tiliifolium Desv. Contents |
Bagassa guianensis is a tree in the plant family Moraceae which is native to the Guianas and Brazil. It is valued as a timber tree and as a food tree for wildlife. The juvenile leaves are distinctly different in appearance from the mature leaves, and were once thought to belong to different species.
Bagassa guianensis is a large, latex-producing, dioecious, deciduous tree which reaches heights of up 45 metres (148 feet) [1] and a diameter at breast height of 190 centimetres (75 inches). [2] The leaves are deeply three-lobed in juveniles, but become entire as the tree matures. They are usually 6–22 cm (2+1⁄4–8+3⁄4 in) long, sometimes up to 30 cm (12 in) long, and 4–17 cm (1+1⁄2–6+3⁄4 in) wide (sometimes up to 23 cm (9 in) wide). [1]
Male and female flowers are borne on separate inflorescences. Male inflorescences are arranged in a spike, which is 4–12 cm (1+1⁄2–4+3⁄4 in) long. Female inflorescences are arranged into a compact head which is 1 to 1.5 cm (3⁄8 to 5⁄8 in) in diameter. The infructescences are 2.5 to 3.5 cm (1 to 1+1⁄2 in) in diameter. [1]
Bagassa is a monotypic genus—it includes only one species, B. guianensis. The genus was established in 1775 by French botanist Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet in his description of the species. Aublet's description was based on juvenile leaves together with infructescences. Based on mature leaves and male inflorescences, French botanist Nicaise Auguste Desvaux described Piper tiliifolium in 1825 and Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré described Laurea tiliifolia in 1844. Raymond Benoist transferred these to Bagassa as B. tiliifolia in 1933. In 1880 Louis Édouard Bureau described B. sagotiana based on mature leaves and female inflorescences. Plants with juvenile and adult foliage were thought to belong to different species until at least 1975; in his 1975 treatment of the Moraceae for the Flora of Suriname, Dutch systematist Cornelis Berg maintained B. guianensis and B. tiliifolia as separate species—the former with lobed juvenile foliage, the latter with the entire leaves of mature trees (although he maintained this distinction with reservations). This confusion would later be clarified through observations of live trees in the field. [1]
The species is known locally as "cow wood", katowar, tuwue or yawahedan[ what language is this? ] in Guyana. In Suriname is it known as gele bagasse, jawahedan, kauhoedoe or kaw-oedoe. In French Guiana it is called bacasse, bagasse, odon or odoun. [3] In Maranhão state in Brazil it is called tatajuba or tareka'y; [4] in Pará it is known as amaparana, taraiko'i [5] or tatajuba; in Roraima it is called tatajuba.[ what language is this? ] [1]
Bagassa guianensis is found in Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and the northern Amazon basin (in the states of Amapá, Pará, Maranhão and Roraima) with an apparently disjunct population in the southwestern states of Mato Grosso and Rondônia. [1]
Bagassa guianensis is a "long-lived pioneer" [6] that frequently established in second growth forests and tree-fall gaps. [1]
Although the structure of B. guianensis flowers suggests bat-pollination, [6] Berg suggested that they might be wind-pollinated since the trees were "tall and deciduous". [1] Direct observation suggests that pollination is primarily by thrips, although the thrips themselves may be dispersed by wind. [2] One study in Pará, Brazil, suggests that on average, seeds were produced by pollen that had travelled between 308 and 961 m (1,010 and 3,153 ft) from the male flowers that produced the pollen to the female flowers that were pollinated. [2]
The seeds of B. guianensis are dispersed by a variety of animals including monkeys, birds, deer, rodents and tortoises. [1]
Bagassa guianensis is a valuable timber species and is intensively exploited. [2] It is used for construction, furniture, and boat-building. [7]
The infructescences are edible. [1] [ verification needed ]
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Xanthosoma is a genus of flowering plants in the arum family, Araceae. The genus is native to tropical America but widely cultivated and naturalized in other tropical regions. Several are grown for their starchy corms, an important food staple of tropical regions, known variously as malanga, otoy, otoe, cocoyam, tannia, tannier, yautía, macabo, ocumo, macal, taioba, dasheen, quequisque, ʻape and as Singapore taro. Many other species, including especially Xanthosoma roseum, are used as ornamental plants; in popular horticultural literature these species may be known as ‘ape due to resemblance to the true Polynesian ʻape, Alocasia macrorrhizos, or as elephant ear from visual resemblance of the leaf to an elephant's ear. Sometimes the latter name is also applied to members in the closely related genera Caladium, Colocasia (taro), and Alocasia.
Hevea is a genus of flowering plants in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, with about ten members. It is also one of many names used commercially for the wood of the most economically important rubber tree, H. brasiliensis. The genus is native to tropical South America but is widely cultivated in other tropical countries and naturalized in several of them. It was first described in 1775.
Couroupita guianensis, known by a variety of common names including cannonball tree, is a deciduous tree in the flowering plant family Lecythidaceae. It is native to the tropical forests of Central and South America, and it is cultivated in many other tropical areas throughout the world because of its fragrant flowers and large fruits, which are brownish grey. There are potential medicinal uses for many parts of Couroupita guianensis, and the tree has cultural and religious significance in South and Southeast Asia. In Sri Lanka and India, the cannonball tree has been widely misidentified as the Sal tree, after its introduction to the island by the British in 1881, and has been included as a common item in Buddhist temples as a result.
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Ficus crassiuscula is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae, native to Central America and north-western parts of South America.
Ficus aurea, commonly known as the Florida strangler fig, golden fig, or higuerón, is a tree in the family Moraceae that is native to the U.S. state of Florida, the northern and western Caribbean, southern Mexico and Central America south to Panama. The specific epithet aurea was applied by English botanist Thomas Nuttall who described the species in 1846.
Ficus maxima is a fig tree which is native to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America south to Paraguay. Figs belong to the family Moraceae. The specific epithet maxima was coined by Scottish botanist Philip Miller in 1768; Miller's name was applied to this species in the Flora of Jamaica, but it was later determined that Miller's description was actually of the species now known as Ficus aurea. To avoid confusion, Cornelis Berg proposed that the name should be conserved for this species. Berg's proposal was accepted in 2005.
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Moreae is a tribe within the plant family Moraceae. It includes 6–10 genera and 70–80 species, including Morus, the genus that includes the mulberries, and Maclura, the genus that includes the Osage orange.
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Simarouba amara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Aubl. in French Guiana in 1775 and is one of six species of Simarouba. The tree is evergreen, but produces a new set of leaves once a year. It requires relatively high levels of light to grow and grows rapidly in these conditions, but lives for a relatively short time. In Panama, it flowers during the dry season in February and March, whereas in Costa Rica, where there is no dry season it flowers later, between March and July. As the species is dioecious, the trees are either male or female and only produce male or female flowers. The small yellow flowers are thought to be pollinated by insects, the resulting fruits are dispersed by animals including monkeys, birds and fruit-eating bats and the seeds are also dispersed by leaf cutter ants.
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Parinari campestris is a species of tree in the plant family Chrysobalanaceae which is native to Trinidad, the Guianas, Venezuela and Brazil. It is reputed to have aphrodisiac properties.
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