Ocotea usambarensis

• Interesting Facts
• Common Names
• Description
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Interesting Facts

Common Names

Description

Family Lauraceae

Shrubs to tall trees , evergreen or rarely deciduous ( Cassytha a parasitic vine with leaves reduced to scales ), usually aromatic . Leaves alternate, rarely whorled or opposite, simple , without stipules, petiolate . Leaf blade : unlobed (unlobed or lobed in Sassafras ), margins entire, occasionally with domatia (crevices or hollows serving as lodging for mites ) in axils of main lateral veins (in Cinnamomum ) . Inflorescences in axils of leaves or deciduous bracts, panicles (rarely heads ), racemes , compound cymes, or pseudoumbels (spikes in Cassytha ), sometimes enclosed by decussate bracts. Flowers bisexual or unisexual , bisexual only, or staminate and pistillate on different plants , or staminate and bisexual on some plants, pistillate and bisexual on others; flowers usually yellow to greenish or white, rarely reddish; hypanthium well developed, resembling calyx tube , tepals and stamens perigynous; tepals 6(-9), in 2(-3) whorls of 3, sepaloid , equal or rarely unequal, if unequal then usually outer 3 smaller than inner 3 (occasionally absent in Litsea ) ; stamens (3-) 9(-12), in whorls of 3, but 1 or more whorls frequently staminodial or absent; stamens of 3d whorl with 2 glands near base ; anthers 2- or 4-locular, locules opening by valves ; pistil 1, 1-carpellate; ovary 1-locular; placentation basal; ovule 1; stigma subsessile , discoid or capitate. Fruits drupes, drupe borne on pedicel with or without persistent tepals at base, or seated in ± deeply cup-shaped receptacle (cupule), or enclosed in accrescent floral tube . Seed 1; endosperm absent.

Genera ca. 50, species 2000-3000 (9 genera, 13 species in the flora ) : pantropical , a few species also in subtropical and temperate regions

Cassytha is sometimes placed in its own family , Cassythaceae; it is here retained in Lauraceae.[1]

Habitat

Typically found at an altitude of 0 to 2,107 meters (0 to 6,913 feet).[2]

Taxonomy

Similar Species

Members of the genus Ocotea

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 14 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

O. aciphylla (Moena) · O. floribunda (Laurel Espada) · O. foeniculacea (Black Sweetwood) · O. foetens (Tilo) · O. holdridgeana (Tall-Fin Shrimp-Goby) · O. lancilimba (Bois Cannelle) · O. leucoxylon (Loblolly Sweetwood) · O. moschata (Nemoca) · O. nemodaphne (Laurel Sassafras) · O. portoricensis (Laurel De Paloma) · O. puberula (Cedre Gris) · O. spathulata (Nemoca Cimarrona) · O. usambarensis (East African Camphorwood) · O. wrightii (Wright's Laurel Canelon)

More Info

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Further Reading

• A colony in the making: or, Sport and profit in British East Africa / by Lord Cranworth. London: Macmillan, 1912. url p. 157, p. 162.
• A global directory of tropical montane cloud forests. Draft WCMC url p. 87.
• A manual of forestry. LondonBradbury, Agnew1906-25 url p. 288.
• Bulletin of miscellaneous information /Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 1911 London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1900-1941. url p. 120.
• Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). London: BM(NH) url p. 77.
• Contribution to an evaluation of tree species using the new CITES Listing Criteria CITES url p. 97.
• Great Basin naturalist memoirs. 1992 [Provo, Utah]Brigham Young University, 1976-1992. url p. 312.
• IUCN Directory of Afrotropical Protected Areas IUCN, UNEP url p. 1026, p. 253.
• Men of the trees; in the mahogany forests of Kenya and Nigeria, New York, L. MacVeagh, The Dial press;1931. url p. 222.
• Pre-project study on the conservation status of tropical timbers in trade. Final report to International Tropical Timber Organization. Vol 1 ITTO url p. 42.
• Rare Tropical Timbers IUCN url p. 15.
• Report on the forests of British East Africa. LondonPrinted for His Majesty's Stationery Off. by Darling1909 url p. 12, p. 13, p. 24.
• Threatened Swallowtail Butterflies of the World: the IUCN Red Data Book IUCN url p. 348.
• Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society. Edinburgh: Douglas & Foulis, 1888-1926. url .
• Tree species evaluation using the new CITES Listing Criteria CITES url p. 77.
• Wissenschaftliche ergebnisse der Deutschen Zentral-Africa-Expedition, 1907-1908: unter Führung Adolf Friedrichs, herzogs zu Mecklenburg. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1910- url p. 215, p. 653, p. 709.
• Wood, C. E. Jr. 1958. The genera of the woody Ranales in the southeastern United States. J. Arnold Arbor. 39: 296-346.

Notes

Contributors

• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 12, 2012.

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal November 26, 2007:

• Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden

Identifiers

• Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 9474157
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 15554742
• Globally Unique Identifier: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:467675-1
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 1037533

Footnotes

1. Henk van der Werff "Lauraceae". in Flora of North America Vol. 3. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
2. Mean = 916.860 meters (3,008.071 feet), Standard Deviation = 546.900 based on 28 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.