| Literature for Leucaena leucocephala subsp. leucocephala
Hughes, 1998; Lorence & Wagner, 2020. Literature for Leucaena leucocephala Hughes, 1998. |
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| Fabaceae -- The Pea Family | Bibliography |
| Leucaena leucocephala |
| General Information | |
|---|---|
| Distribution | Native to the Neotropics, cultivated for various purposes such as fodder, firewood, erosion control, soil improvement, shade trees for coffee or cocoa plantations, and seeds for necklaces, easily escaping and now widely naturalized throughout the tropics. |
| Habit |
Shrubs or small trees 3-15 (20) m tall, variably shrubby and highly branched to arborescent; leafy shoots densely white pubescent or glabrous. |
| Leaves |
Leaves (10)12-25 cm long, (5-)7-16 cm wide, with (4)6-8(9) pairs of pinnae, leaflets 13-21 pairs per pinna, subopposite, obliquely narrowly ovate, 9-16(21) mm long, 2-4.5 mm wide, glabrous, puberulent on margins and sometimes along midrib, apex acute, base rounded to obtuse; petioles 13-34 mm long, glabrous or densely pubescent, with a single nectary adaxially at the distal end; stipules ovate or lanceolate, 3.5-4.1 mm long. |
| Flowers |
Flowers pale green or white, in capitula 12-21 mm in diam. at anthesis, with 100-180 flowers, peduncles 1-2 per leaf axil, 15-20 mm long; calyx 2.3-3.8 mm long, pubescent on lobes, pale greenish or cream; petals 4-5.6 mm long, free at base, free or partially united above, puberulent on lobes, pale green; stamens with filaments 6-11 mm long, anthers sparsely hairy; ovary 1.8-2.7 mm long, hairy, style 7-12 mm long. |
| Fruit |
Pods (3)5-20(45) per capitulum, linear oblong, (9)11-19(20) cm long, (1.3-)1.5-2.1 cm wide, glabrous to densely white velutinous, 8-18-seeded, on a stipe up to 1.4 cm long. |
| Seeds |
Seeds glossy brown, ellipsoid or ovoid, laterally flattened, 6.7-9.6 mm long, 4-6.3 mm wide, 0.8-2 mm thick, with a pleurogram ca. 4 mm long and 1.5 mm wide. |
| Chromosomes |
2n = 104 |
| Notes |
Hughes (1998) recognizes three subspecies: subsp. glabrata, subsp. ixtahuacana, and subsp. leucocephala, of which only the latter is naturalized in the Pacific region. |
| Contributor |
David Lorence |