Richeria grandis

Richeria grandis is a tree species in the family Phyllanthaceae which ranges from the Lesser Antilles to South America.[1]:687–688 The species is reputed to have aphrodisiac properties.[2]:105

Richeria grandis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Malpighiales
Family: Phyllanthaceae
Genus: Richeria
Species:
R. grandis
Binomial name
Richeria grandis

Description
Staminate (male) flowers of Richeria grandis.
Pistillate (female) flowers of Richeria grandis.

Richeria grandis is a large, evergreen tree with brown bark and a brownish-orange inner bark. It has simple, alternate leaves with an entire margin. The leaves are large,[3]:224 generally 10–20 centimetres (4–8 in) long[4] up to 30 centimetres (12 in) long and 13 centimetres (5 in) wide.[3] The species is dioecious—male and female flowers are borne on separate plants. The male inflorescences are 3–10 centimetres (1–4 in) long with 3-7 flowers; the female inflorescences are 3–5 centimetres (1–2 in) long. The fruit is a capsule, about 1 centimetre (0.4 in) long.[4]

Taxonomy

The species was first described by Martin Vahl in 1797.[1] The species was placed in the Euphorbiaceae, but that family was split up after molecular work showed that the family was polyphyletic. Richeria was moved into a new family, the Phyllanthaceae, when the subfamily Phyllanthoideae was elevated as a result of this split in the Euphorbiaceae.[5][6]

Ecology

Richeria grandis is a common species in montane forests in parts of the Caribbean and South America.[7][8] Ariel Lugo and colleagues reported that the species suffered higher levels of damage than most trees after Hurricane David hit the island of Dominica in 1979.[9] The species is an aluminium accumulator, and is capable of accumulating as much as 15,000 ppm of aluminium in its leaves.[8] The plant was able to tolerate the potentially toxic levels of aluminium primarily by depositing the metal in the cell walls of its leaves.[10]

The polypore Porogramme richeriae was described based on collections from the trunk of R. grandis in Guadeloupe.[11]

Uses

Richeria grandis is one of several species including Parinari campestris and Roupala montana which known by the common name bois bandé. These species are reputed to have aphrodisiac properties.[2]

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References
  1. Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro; Mark T. Strong (2012). Catalogue of Seed Plants of the West Indies. Smithsonian Contributions to Botany. 98. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.
  2. Winer, Lise (2009). Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago: On Historical Principles. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
  3. Marshall, R.C. (1939). Silviculture of the Trees of Trinidad and Tobago, British West Indies. London: Oxford University Press.
  4. Macbride, J. Francis (1951). Flora of Peru. Botanical Series, Field Museum of Natural History. XIII, Part IIIA, Number 1. Field Museum Press. pp. 48–49.
  5. Wurdack, Kenneth J.; Petra Hoffmann; Rosabelle Samuel; Anette de Bruijn; Michelle van der Bank; Mark W. Chase (2004). "Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Phyllanthaceae (Phyllanthoideae pro parte, Euphorbiaceae sensu lato) using plastid RBCL DNA sequences". American Journal of Botany. 91 (11): 1882–1900. doi:10.3732/ajb.91.11.1882. PMID 21652335.
  6. Wurdack, Kenneth J.; Charles C. Davis (2009). "Malpighiales phylogenetics: Gaining ground on one of the most recalcitrant clades in the angiosperm tree of life". American Journal of Botany. 96 (8): 1551–1570. doi:10.3732/ajb.0800207. PMID 21628300.
  7. Beard, John S. (1946). The Natural Vegetation of Trinidad. Oxford Forestry Memoirs. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
  8. Cuenca, Gisela; Rafael Herrera; Ernesto Medina (1990). "Aluminium tolerance in trees of a tropical cloud forest". Plant and Soil. 125: 169–175. doi:10.1007/bf00010654.
  9. Lugo, Ariel E.; Milton Applefield; Douglas J. Pool; Robert B. McDonald (1983). "The impact of Hurricane David on the forests of Dominica". Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 13 (2): 201–211. doi:10.1139/x83-029.
  10. Cuenca, G.; R. Herrera; T. Mérida (1991). "Distribution of aluminium in accumulator plants by X-ray microanalysis of Richeria grandis Vahl leaves from a cloud forest in Venezuela". Plant, Cell and Environment. 14: 437–441. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.1991.tb00954.x.
  11. Ryvarden, Leif (1983). "Type Studies in the Polyporaceae 14: Species Described by N. Patouillard, Either Alone or with other Mycologists". Occasional Papers of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany. 18: 1–39.
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