Nephrodesmus

Taxonomy

Nephrodesmus A.K. Schindler Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 54: 66. 26 Apr 1916.

Subfamily: Faboideae.
Phylogenetic Number: 3.11.04.
Tribe: Desmodieae.
Subtribe: Desmodiinae.
Species Studied - Species in Genus: 0 studied; 6 in genus.

Description

Fruit: A loment (or a loment segment); 10–15 cm long; 0.7–0.85 cm wide; 0.1–0.4 cm thick (assumed); more than 9 times longer than wide; with persistent androecial sheath; with deciduous corolla; with persistent calyx, or deciduous calyx; with calyx shorter than fruit; without orifice formed by curving of fruit or fruit segments; straight, or curved (slightly); not plicate; not twisted; asymmetrical, or symmetrical; moniliform; with both sutures parallelly curved; not inflated; flattened; without beak, or with beak; straight; with solid beak the same color and texture as fruit; rounded at apex; aligned with longitudinal axis of fruit; rounded at base; oblique with longitudinal axis of fruit; with the apex and base uniform in texture; membranous, or chartaceous (both assumed); seed chambers externally visible; margin constricted; margin constricted along both margins; margin without sulcus; margin plain; wing(s) absent; stipitate; with the stipe 10–15 mm long; indehiscent. Replum invisible. Loment an intact article; indehiscent; segments (articles) inconspicuous; segments (articles) 15–20 mm long; segments (articles) widest across seed area; segments (articles) with all essentially similar in shape; segments (articles) oblong. Epicarp dull; monochrome; greenish brown, or green; with surface texture uniform; pubescent and indurate; with hairs appressed; with 1 type of pubescence; with pubescence reddish brown; with simple hairs; pliable; with hair bases plain; eglandular; without spines; not smooth; with elevated features; veined; longitudinally veined relative to fruit length (assumed); not tuberculate; not exfoliating; without cracks. Mesocarp present, or absent (assumed to be like Desmodium 11.09)). Seed(s) 8–9; length parallel with fruit length; neither overlapping nor touching; in 1 series. Funiculus of 1 length only.

Distribution

New Caledonia.

Old World; Pacific (New Caledonia).

Generic Notes

Ohashi et al. (1981) noted that Nephrodesmus is scarcely distinct from Arthroclianthus (11.03). Neither seeds nor fruits were available for study. Our only material were a xeroxed herbarium sheet labelled N. sericeus (B.P.G. Hochreutiner) A.K. Schindler collected by S.-R. Lenormand (2941), New Caledonia (K) and N. albus collected by B. Balansa (2808), New Caledonia (BM). Another sheet of B. Balansa (K) was studied from a colored photograph.

Tribal Notes

Tribe Desmodieae

Ohashi et al. (1981) started their treatment of the Desmodieae with these thoughts: "A sensible classification of Desmodieae is prejudiced by the traditional over-weighting of fruit characters." (sic) "The fruit normally consists of indehiscent jointed articles, but fruits that open have arisen at least seven times..." They supplemented their text with a fruit-seed plate. They placed Brya and Cranocarpus (11.02), the only two New World endemic genera, in the new subtribe Bryinae, "characterized most notably by glochidiate hairs." Bailey et al. (1997), using the chloroplast rpl2 intron and ORF184, suggested that Brya, Cranocarpus, Phylacium (11.22), and Neocollettia (11.26) are not members of Desmodieae and that they probably belong in Aeschynomeneae (14).