Abstract
A box of legume specimens, marked for the attention of the late J. P. M. Brenan, was recently unearthed at Kew. Amongst the fascinating collections were several flowering and fruiting specimens of a Caesalpinioid legume collected in Mozambique by A.F. Gomes e Sousa dating back to 1960. A note in Brenan's handwriting attached to Gomes e Sousa 4528 states: "New genus (Cynometra carvalhoi ) to be considered when Cynometra is revised". Brenan provided additional detailed notes outlining why he thought the plant could not be a Cynometra sensu stricto. His comments are pertinent to the discussion about the correct taxonomic placement of the species: "Although this keys down to Cynometra, and may well (e descr.) be C. carvalhoi Harms, it differs greatly (and probably generically) from all the three groups established by Leonard in Bull. Jard. Bot. Etat. 21: 1951. From Group I it differs in the non-strobiliferous racemes, non-emarginate leaflets, 2 ovules and certainly the pods. From Group II it differs in having racemes not panicles and twisted petioles. From Group III it differs in having racemes. From all the groups it differs in having a capitately enlarged stigma and in having curved not straight anthers several times as large as in any Cynometra known to me. The pods also differ from those of all Cynometra in having a projecting wing-like ridge along each side of the upper suture (as in Scorodophloeus )" The holotype of Cynometra carvalhoi, lodged in the herbarium at Coimbra, was not seen by Brenan. It is a fragmentary specimen consisting of juvenile foliage and a few flower buds but the material is sufficient to confirm that Brenan was correct in equating Gomes e Sousa 4528 with this species. For the past few years, Dr. F. J. Breteler of Wageningen has been re-evaluating the genera of the Caesalpinioid tribes Amherstieae and Detarieae and the border between the two. Recently Breteler (1995) redelimited the Detarieae, placed Amherstieae in synonymy, and described a new tribe Macrolobieae which contains all but three genera of the former Amherstieae. The genus Cynometra is a member of the Detarieae. Breteler (pers. comm. and unpublished notes, 1995) considers nineteen genera to belong to the "Cynometra complex" and within this complex some genera are "so closely related that they have to be studied simultaneously in order to settle their
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