Miconia mirabilis, known as camsey cuatrocanales, is a species of flowering plant of the family Melastomataceae. It is found in Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America.
Distribution
Miconia mirabilis is present from southwestern Mexico to southeastern Brazil. This range includes: Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in Central America; Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, the Windward Islands, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean; and Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, andPeru in South America.
In Dominica it is common at low to mid-elevations (200–1000 m) in the wetter areas of the island. In Guadeloupe, Miconia mirabilis flowers after cyclones. In Puerto Rico, the plant can be found in woodlands and forests in wet/moist areas, ascending to higher elevations. In Venezuela, the trees grow in evergreen forests from plains to mountains, at altitudes of 50–1,300 m (as high as 1,600 m), and elsewhere mainly in humid lowland forests.
Description Miconia mirabilis is a tree that grows to a height of 5–20 m (16–65 ft).
The branches, the underside of the leaves, the inflorescences, and the bracts are moderately to completely covered with minute stellate or lepidote-stellate hairs. The leaf blades are elliptic to oval-elliptic, with a gradually acuminate apex and an acute to rounded base, generally measuring 10–15 × 4–7 cm; thin-ridged, with the upper surface glabrous, the lower surface in the axils of the primary veins usually sparsely barbed with hairs up to 1 mm long, with 5 (up to 7) ribs. The petioles are generally 2.5–5 cm long.
The panicle is usually 9–12 cm long and submultiflorous. The flowers are 5-merous (up to 6-merous), on pedicels 2–5 mm long, subtended by a pair of broadly elliptic to obovate-elliptic deciduous bracts 5–8 mm (up to 15 mm) long, arranged in umbels on the terminal branches. The glabrous hypanthium is 3–4.2 mm long. The calyx is 1–1.8 mm long and wavy-lobed, 0.4–0.6 mm in diameter. The outer teeth are obscure and completely adnate. The torus is moderately polu-silky inside. The petals are white, 7–9 × 2.5–3.5 mm, narrowly obovate-oblong, and pruinose-granulose. The stamens are slightly dimorphic, generally glabrous, with thecae 6–8 mm long, subulate. The stigma is capitate. The style is slightly stellate-pubulose at the base and glandular-setular. The ovary is 3 (up to 5) locular, moderately stellate-pubulose at the apex.
Common names Miconia mirabilis has many common names, varying linguistically and regionally. Below is a non-exhaustive list, by language and/or region.
French Antillean Creole names
bois cotelette (Guadeloupe) bois cotte (Saint Lucia) bois crécré (Dominica) côtelette blanc (Martinique) cré-cré (Dominica, Martinique)
Haitian Creole names
crécré-falaise (Haiti) grand crécré (Haiti) macrio (Haiti)
Portuguese names
tinteiro (Brazil)
Spanish names
camasey (Puerto Rico) camasey blanco (Puerto Rico) camasey cuatrocanales (Puerto Rico) camasey de costilla (Puerto Rico) capirote blanco (Honduras) manzano (Venezuela) tresfilos (Dominican Republic) sirin manzana (Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua)
Various names in the Guianas
basterd mispel (Surinamese Dutch) busimusupu (Aucan/Ndyuka language)
itaraballi (Arawak/Lokono language) kuyakeng ereparë / kuyakeng ereparï (Carib/Kalina language) mesupu (Paramaccan/Ndyuka language) mispel (Surinamese Dutch) pasakawara / psakawara (Carib/Kalina language) piemplsi (Carib/Kalina language) pihpisi ereparë / pimpisi ereparï (Carib/Kalina language) waraia (Arawak/Lokono language) wakaladang / wakaradan (Arawak/Lokono language)
First species description
In 1775, the botanist Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet described Miconia mirabilis in the following protologue:
See also List of Miconia species
Notes
References