Barringtonia J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.

Shrubs or trees, bark often fissured; growth in flushes with an open terminal bud, each flush often provided with reduced leaves (cataphylls) in the basal part; leaf scars distinct. Stipules very small, triangular, acute, caducous. Leaves spirally arranged, often clustered at end of branches; petioles flat above, semi-terete beneath, often with decurrent leaf bases, or leaves sessile; blades usually obovate to linear-lanceolate or lanceolate in 2 species, base usually cuneate, margins serrate-crenulate or entire, apex acute or acuminate, midrib prominent on both surfaces. Inflorescences racemes, spikes or rarely clustered, terminal, lateral or cauliflorous, usually pendulous, erect in only a few species, glabrous or pulverulent; peduncle often with a tuft of cataphylls at base; bracts small, sessile, caducous; bracteoles very small, caducous. Flowers sessile or pedicellate; buds globular. Calyx tube (ovary) obconical, mostly 4-angular, sometimes 4-winged, glabrous or pulverulent; calyx chartaceous, parallel-veined, convex, in bud either connate and closed sometimes with a small circular apical pore and at anthesis rupturing into 2-5 persistent segments or with circumscissile rupturing above the base to leave a cup-shaped ring (the calyptra entire or rarely lobed) or with 4(-5) free calyx lobes inserted on a ring-shaped tube slightly elevated above the torus, in bud imbricate, persistent, free sepals always fimbriate, the margin of apical pore similar in structure to that of free sepals. Petals usually 4, sometimes 3 or 5, cochlear-imbricate, convex, alternate with free sepals, adnate to the short staminal tube. Stamens numerous, strongly folded in bud, connate at base, inserted in 3-8 or rarely up to 12 whorls, the inner whorl or sometimes 2-3 reduced to shorter staminodia, staminodia sometimes connate for up to half their length and then generally exceeding the staminal tube in length; anthers basifixed, 2-celled, latrorse. Disc a thin or thick undulating ring surrounding the style base. Style long, terete, filiform, folded in bud, persistent often even in fruit, the stigma slightly knob-like, sometimes with an apical pore. Ovary inferior, usually tapering into the pedicel, 2-4-celled but the septa often incomplete; ovules usually 2-6 per locule, rarely more, attached apically and axially towards apex only on upper portion, pendent, anatropous, apotropous. Fruits obovoid, ellipsoid or fusiform, terete or angled to winged; exocarp thin; mesocarp fibrous or rarely spongy with few fibres; endocarp thin or a layer of fibres. Seeds 1-5, large; testa brownish, membranaceous; embryo developing from a pro-embryo, originally with abundant nuclear endosperm which later disintegrates; in later stages embryo solid, spindle-shaped, without cotyledons but with a spiral of minute scales towards apex.

Uses The bark and fruit of many species are used for fish poisons almost throughout the range of the genus. The young leaves of several species (for example B. acut­angula and B. fusiformis) are used in salads and chutnies. Three species, B. edulis, B. novae-hiberneae and B. procera have edible seeds and are often cultivated for them (see Jebb Bot. Mag. 9 1992 164-172 ). Many local medicinal uses for different parts of the plants have been recorded. The wood of a few species has limited uses.