Cyathea dombeyi Lellinger
Creators: name: Lehnert, Marcus
name: Tejedor, Adrian
name: Kessler, Michael
name: Rodríguez Duque, Wilson D.
name: Gallego, Luis Fernando Giraldo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Polypodiopsida
Cyatheales
Cyatheaceae
Cyathea
Cyathea dombeyi

description: Cyathea dombeyi (Desv.) Lellinger
Fig. 3
Cyathea dombeyi (Desv.) Lellinger (Lellinger 1987 [1988]: 94). – Alsophila dombeyi Desv. (Desvaux 1827: 320). – Trichipteris dombeyi (Desv.) Barrington (Barrington 1976: 3).
– Type: PERU – Huánuco • “ In Peruvia,” Cochero; 1780; J. Dombey s.n.; lectotype: P [P00642343]!, designated by Lehnert 2016: 36; isolectotypes: B [B 20 0000123 b]!, P [P00642344, P00642345]!.
Alsophila armigera Kunze (Kunze 1834: 98).
– Type: PERU – Huánuco • Prov. Huánuco, Ventanilla de Cassapi; Jul. 1829; E. Poeppig s.n.; holotype: LZ [destroyed]; lectotype: W [W0053351]!, designated by Lehnert 2016; isolectotypes: LE [LE00008089] image!, MO [MO-1858413] image!, P [P00642342]!, W [W0053352]!.
Alsophila peruviana Klotzsch (Klotzsch 1847: 441).
– Type: PERU • “ Ad Tarma ”; Ruíz Herb. 66; lectotype: B [B 20 0000123 a]!, designated by Lehnert 2016; isolectotypes: GH [fragment of B] n.v., NY [00148737, fragment of B]!.
Etymology
The specific epithet honors Joseph Dombey (1742–1794), French botanist and the collector of the type specimen.
Selected material studied
PERU – Amazonas, Prov. Bagua • Distrito Imaza, Yamayakat; 5°03′20″ S, 78°20′23″ W; 400 m a.s.l.; 18 Nov. 1996; R. Vasquez, P. Stern, R. Rojas & R. Aguilar 21824; MO, UC. – Huánuco, Prov. Leoncio Prado • Near confluence of Río Cayumba with Huallaga; 875 m a.s.l.; 14 Oct. 1936; Y. Mexia 8293; UC • Tingo Maria; 700 m a.s.l.; 2 Sep. 1956; R.M. Tryon & A.F. Tryon 5256; BM. – Pasco, Prov. Oxapampa • Dist. Villa Rica, zona de amortiguamiento del Parque Nacional Yanachaga-Chemillén; 10°39′17″ S, 75°10′39″ W; 1290 m a.s.l.; 15 Apr. 2006; A. Monteagudo et al. 11882; MO. – San Martin, Prov. San Martin • near Tarapoto; 6°26.832′ S, 76°17.741′ W; 1050–1100 m a.s.l.; 3 Nov. 2010; M. Lehnert 1998; HAL, USM • In montibus secus flumen Mayo, prope Tarapoto; Jul.–Aug. 1856; R. Spruce 4715 [excluded syntypes of Alsophila floribunda]; B [B 20 0000122], BM [BM000777032 (mix with C. pungens)], P [P00642346 (mix with C. pungens), P00642351].
BOLIVIA – La Paz, Prov. Larecaja • 6–10 km E of Consata along new road; 15°15′ S, 68°30′ W; 1350–1400 m a.s.l.; 14 Dec. 1981; C.R. Sperling et al. 5437; BM, GH, MO, US. – Cochabamba, Prov. Chapare • 159 km antigua carretera Cochabamba-Villa Tunari; 17°05′ S, 65°31′ W; 700 m a.s.l.; 7 Sep. 1997; M. Kessler 8221; GOET, UC.
Description
Trunks 0.5–2.4(–4.0) m tall, 5.0–12.0(–15.0) cm diam., straight, with persistent old petiole bases, spiny; apices hidden between petioles; adventitious buds absent. Leaves to 270 cm long, erect to weakly arching. Petioles 60–100 cm long, aculeate, prickles 3–5 mm long, dark brown; pneumathodes to 10 × 1 mm, inconspicuously brown in dried material, whitish in fresh material; without adventitious (aphlebioid) pinnae at the petiole bases; petiole scales lanceolate, 25.0–32.0 × 2.5–4.0 mm, their tips straight to falcate, twisted, concordantly to discordantly bicolorous, shiny dark brown, with whitish margins and regular dark brown teeth; colors mostly sharply contrasted; petiole scurf a matted tomentum of small branched hairs and dissected squamules 0.2–0.4 mm long, yellowish white with brown parts, white in general aspect, soon caduceus, persistent between prickles. Blades 100–160 × 60–100 cm, bipinnate-pinnatifid, elliptic to obovate, chartaceous to subcoriaceous; dark olive-green adaxially, often blackish when dried, olive-green abaxially; apices ± gradually reduced. Rachises inermous or proximally aculeate, stramineous to yellowish brown on both sides; adaxially with antrorsely curved uniseriate hairs 0.5–1.0 mm long, abaxially glabrous except for scurf remnants, containing appressed, white trichomoidia and dissected squamules (0.2–0.5 mm). Largest pinnae 50–65 cm long, pinnae 10–15 pairs per leaf, sessile to stalked to 0.5 cm, alternate, ascending, distally broadly green alate, the distal segments decurrently adnate before ending in pinnatifid terminal segments; basal pinna pairs much smaller than medial pinnae, reflexed. Costae inermous, to 2.0–3.0 mm wide, adaxially with antrorsely curved uniseriate hairs 0.5–1.0 mm long, abaxially with scurf like on the rachises and scattered pale brown squamules, insertions into rachises abaxially weakly swollen, each with an inconspicuous planar pneumathode, dark brown, elliptic, to 2.0 × 1.0 mm, area around it often black in dried specimens. Largest pinnules 7.5–9.0(–13.5) × (1.3–)1.5–1.8(– 2.0) cm, sessile to subsessile, articulate, alternate, 1.5–2.0 cm between the stalks, linear-oblong, incised to ½ or more of their width, bases truncate to weakly cordate, tapering from the middle to attenuate tips; costules with flat lanceolate bicolorous scales to 3 × 2 mm and bullate squamules to 0.5–1.0 mm long with entire margins and long acute tips, varying in color from tan to deep brown, usually with white tips; costules basally with a black ring going all around their bases (abscission layer); segments oblong, to 5.0–15.0 × 3.0(–7.0) mm, patent to ascending, straight to distally weakly falcate, with entire to weakly dentate margins, tips rounded to obtuse, rarely acute and then margins weakly dentate; basal segments opposite to alternate, the lowest ones not remote from each other, sinuses triangular, acute, 1.0–2.0 mm wide, sometimes occluded; veins prominent abaxially and adaxially, midveins strongly so and adaxially ridged, lateral veins ending at segment margins; midveins yellowish brown abaxially and adaxially, lateral veins yellowish to greenish brown or blackish; glabrous adaxially except for occasional single hairs on the midveins, abaxially glabrous or with squamules and trichomidia like on the costules (squamules on midveins darker or more strongly bicolorous than those on the costules), trichomidia sometimes also between the veins; sterile and fertile veins mostly simple, rarely forked. Sori (0.8–)1.0– 1.5 mm diam., medial and parallel to the midveins, or tapering to a subproximal position towards the segment tips (V-shape), on the back of veins, indusia absent; receptacles globose to ellipsoid, 0.3–0.4 mm diam.; paraphyses few to numerous, hyaline, tan to brown, shorter than sporangia (0.2–0.3 mm). Spores not examined.
Distribution and ecology
Peru and Bolivia (Fig. 2A) at elevations of 700–2000 m a.s.l. in the understory of humid mountain forests.
Remarks
Cyathea dombeyi and C. pungens differ significantly in the overall appearance of the plants and the shape of the pinnules (compare Figs 3 and 8). In fresh material with intact sori, the different position of the soral lines in these two species is even more evident, which are closer to the midveins in C. dombeyi and closer to the margins in C. pungens.
The type of Alsophila floribunda (Spruce 4715) was identified as a mixture of different species by Barrington (1978); the specimen P00642346 has a corresponding label, excluding the upper left pinna as belonging to C. pungens (as Trichipteris procera) and referring the rest correctly to C. dombeyi. However, the Kew material belongs to a third morphospecies with remotely postioned, blunt pinnules and abundant whitish bullate squamules below on veins and costules, which is clearly the condition described by Hooker & Baker (1874) for A. floribunda. We separate this taxon from C. dombeyi and transfer with it another synonym, Alsophila bulligera Rosenst. More material of the type collection of A. floribunda (Spruce 4715) can be identified as C. pycnocarpa, another synonym of C. dombeyi here reinstated. This means that the otherwise reliable Richard Spruce mixed at least four invididuals, each representing a different morphotype (and likely true species), under one number.
description: Published as part of Lehnert, Marcus, Tejedor, Adrian, Kessler, Michael, Rodríguez Duque, Wilson D. & Gallego, Luis Fernando Giraldo, 2025, A reassessment of the Neotropical Cyathea pungens complex (Cyatheaceae), pp. 1-57 in European Journal of Taxonomy 988 on pages 9-12, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2025.988.2883, http://zenodo.org/record/15282277