Aglaia Lour.

Usually small to large trees, rarely bushes, with indumentum of stellate hairs or pel-tate scales; dioecious; trunk often with buttresses, bosses often present where branches have fallen off and these frequently bearing leafy shoots; crown sympodial; branched throughout or in the upper part only, or unbranched with a crown of leaves, branches usually ascending or patent or sometimes arching. Bark smooth or somewhat rough, sometimes (especially in the larger species) deciduous in squarish scales, usually with Longitudinal rows of lenticels. Latex often present, sometimes flowing rapidly when the trunk is cut. Twigs stout or slender, usually greyish-brown, sometimes greenish-brown, yellowish-brown or reddish-brown, surface smooth or longitudinally wrinkled, apical bud without bud scales, made up of 2–4 unexpanded leaves which are spike-like, al-ways with dense stellate hairs or peltate scales. Leaves borne in spirals, widely sepa-rated on the apical shoots or close together with the petiole bases overlapping, usually inparipinnate with lateral and terminal leaflets usually similar, the basal pair of leaflets rarely markedly smaller in size, leaves rarely simple. Leaflets (l–)3–25, the laterals usually subopposite, sometimes alternate, lanceolate, oblanceolate, ovate, obovate, el-liptical or oblong, the lamina usually of moderate thickness, sometimes membraneous or coriaceous, the surfaces usually smooth, one or both surfaces sometimes rugose, rugulose or pitted, the margin entire in plants of all ages, usually planar, sometimes re-curved or slightly wavy, apex usually acuminate to caudate with the acumen obtuse or acute, rarely rounded, base rounded, subcordate, cuneate or attenuate, usually asym-metrical, in some species almost without indumentum but usually the lower surface with few, numerous or dense hairs or scales like those on the twigs; midrib and lateral veins usually prominent, subprominent or depressed, ascending, curved upwards near the margin and sometimes anastomosing, the reticulation occasionally subprominent on one or both surfaces, sessile or with a petiolule up to or rarely exceeding 25 mm. Inflorescences usually axillary or supra-axillary, occasionally ramiflorous or cauliflorous, often several on an apical shoot. Flowers unisexual with well developed rudiments of the op-posite sex. Male inflorescence large, much divaricately branched, more or less triangu-lar in outline, with small triangular or linear bracts which are often deciduous before maturity. Flowers up to 10,000, terminal on branchlets, solitary or in sessile clusters, sometimes with bracteoles similar to the bracts, usually smelling of citronella, minute, 1–6(–10) mm long, subglobose, ellipsoid or obovoid. Female inflorescence similar to the male but usually smaller and less-branched, sometimes a narrow spike-like raceme vith few flowers; flowers often larger than in the male. Calyx 1/4–2/3 the length of the corolla, cup-shaped, often thickened at the base, shallowly or deeply 3–5-(or 6-)lobed, aestivation open or imbricate, the lobes unequal and sometimes patent at anthesis. Co-rolla aestivation imbricate or quincuncial, petals 305 (or 6), free or united at the base, free from the staminal tube or partially united to it, usually yellow, sometimes pink or white, subrotund, elliptical or obovate, unequal, concave and usually thickest in the centre, often hooded at the apex when in bud, separating at anthesis, occasionally with stellate hairs or peltate scales on the outside. Staminal tube 0.5–8 mm long, more or less truncate at the base, usually subglobose, obovoid, cup-shaped, the apex incurved or rarely shortly cylindrical, without appendages, sometimes with stellate or simple hairs on the inner surface, aperture small to large with an entire, crenate or shallowly lobed margin; anthers (3–)5–10(–21), usually in a single whorl, rarely two or more overlapping whorls, occasionally with stellate or simple hairs, broadly or narrowly ovoid, dehiscing by two longitudinal slits, inserted on the inner surface of the tube either just below and protruding through the aperture and pointing towards the centre of the flower or more or less vertical against the inner surface of the tube, curved to follow the shape of the tube and partially or completely included, rarely inserted on the margin of the tube; anthers in the female flowers similar but sterile, usually not dehiscing and without pollen, rarely with a few misshapen pollen grains. Pollen 3-(? or 4-)corporate, 3–30 urn long, subprolate or prolate, exine smooth or rarely minutely scabrous, thicken-ed at the apertures. Disk absent. Ovary l–3(–10)-locular, superior, depressed-globose or ovoid with dense stellate hairs or peltate scales; locules with 1 or 2 collateral or super-posed ovules, where carpels more than 1, placentation axial. Style a very short constric-tion between the ovary and style or absent. Stigma ovoid, more or less cylindrical or depressed-globose, often dark and shiny when mature, sometimes with longitudinal ridges, entire at the apex or with 2, 3 or rarely 4 small lobes, in one species (A. parvi-flora) the apex flattened and its margin raised and lobed; ovary and stigma in the male either poorly developed or similar to the female but sterile. Infructescences often several on a shoot with 1–c. 200 fruits. Fruits subglobose, obovoid or ellipsoid, indehiscent or a loculicidal capsule with 1–3 or rarely 4 or 10 locules each with one seed or rarely 2. Seeds large, usually with an aril or sarcotesta nearly or completely covering the seed. Em-bryo with thick plano-convex superposed or rarely oblique cotyledons, radicle included, the shoot axis with dense stellate hairs or peltate scales; endosperm absent. Germination semi-hypogeal, with hypocotyl undeveloped. First two leaves simple and opposite, sub-sequent leaves spirally arranged, simple at first, later 2-or 3-foliolate and increasing to or exceeding the number of leaflets present on the leaves of the mature plant.

UsesThe wood of Aglaia is sometimes used locally for building or making furni-ture and the fleshy layer around the seeds of some species is edible, although inferior in quality to that of Lansium domesticum Correa agg., the Langsat. Trees of one species, Aglaia korthalsii, are grown for their fruits in villages in the state of Kelantan, Penin-sular Malaysia. The flowers of A. odorata Lour, are used by the Chinese for scenting tea and in Java for scenting clothes (see under Cultivated species, below and p. 383). More recently investigation of the essential oil of the root bark of a species (incorrectly referred to as A. odoratissima) from Karnataka in India has revealed that the oil pos-sesses antimicrobial and anthelmintic activities in vitro and that it has a depressant action on the central nervous system of mice [ Nanda et al. Fitoterapia 58 1987 189–191 ]. See also the paragraph on Phytochemistry, p. 8.