Caesalpinia

Robbrecht, E., Smedt, S. De, Goetghebeur, P., Stoffelen, P. & Verloove, F., 2021, Four flowering plant species described from Katanga (Democratic Republic of the Congo) are based on specimens collected in Guangxi, China, Blumea 66 (1), pp. 82-92 : 89

Caesalpinia

Rudolf Wilczek contributed many family treatments to the Congo Flora. When working on parts of the legumes, he de- scribed two new species in Caesalpinia , one of them, C. homblei R.Wilczek , based on Homblé’s Guangxi collection; he stressed that the genus is mainly represented in tropical Asia and America, although also citing the few natives then known from the African continent, mainly East Africa ( Wilczek 1951, 1952). Wilczek placed C. homblei in sect. Guilandina Benth. where he assumed a relationship with C. bonduc (L.) Roxb., widespread from tropical Africa to Australasia. Caesalpinia homblei remains an accepted name in the International Legume Database & In- formation Service (http://www.ildis.org/LegumeWeb; accessed 8 June 2020).

Caesalpinia homblei needs to be reduced to synonymy of C. bonduc . Homblé 88 possesses the characteristic features of this very variable pantropical species ( Chen et al. 2010): prickly stems and pods densely covered with slender spines. The measurements in Wilczek’s description, based on the poor type specimen, match the description in the Flora of China ( Chen et al. 2010), where C. bonduc is reported from Guangxi. Our comparison with the numerous specimens available in BR confirmed the postulated synonymy.

The specimen Homblé 88 also bears an identification from 1934, by the hand of Jean Ghesquière: Caesalpinia sepiaria Roxb. , a synonym of Caesalpinia decapetala (Roth) Alston , which is reported from Guangxi too. It is also a spiny climber, but differs from C. bonduc in having fragile leathery, shiny, glabrous pods. Ghesquière’s determination, not mentioned by Wilczek, is obviously wrong.