Tree 6–17 m; bole to 10 cm diam. Bark smooth to finely cracked or pustulate, grey-green; underbark orange-red to pinkish; inner bark cream, wood white. Leafy twigs 3–7 mm diam., elenticellate, reddish in sicco. Leaves 20–95 cm, pseudogemmulate; petiole 5–15 cm; rachis terete or laterally channelled in sicco; pseudogemmula fulvous tomentose. Leaflets in (4–)7–20 pairs, most proximal 2.2–11.5 by 1.9–4.8 cm, regularly elliptic, most distal 7.5–25.5 by 2.4–8.5 cm, elliptic-oblong, ± asymmetric, coriaceous, shiny adaxially, duller abaxially, glabrous on both sides, or midrib brown-tomentose adaxially and/or venation pubescent abaxially, bases subequally acute to obtuse, apices long-cuspidate, costae 5–14 on each side, ascending, prominulous to prominent abaxially, petiolules 2–5 mm long. Thyrses 8–45 cm, pendent, fragrant, borne in axils of youngest leaves, thus sometimes appearing terminal, often supra-axillary; axis glabrous to weakly pubescent, 3–5 mm diam., 1–2-branched with pubescent pedicels articulated on slender branchlets c. 3–4 mm long arising from first-order branches to 9 cm long in male, unbranched, spiciform and minutely pedunculate with subsessile flowers condensed into short dense cymules, mostly at distal end of rachis in female. Calyx 3–4 mm long, cupular, 4-or 5-lobed, subglabrous to weakly pubescent, green. Petals 5 or 6, 15–25 by 2–3 mm, narrowly obovate, white or sometimes also tipped pink, sparsely hairy without or glabrous, drying reddish, alternative to quincuncial. Staminal tube subglabrous to villous without, especially at base of lobes, villous within especially near base, margin 5–7-lobed, the lobes subentire to irregularly 2–3-fid; anthers 8–10, c. 1.5 mm long, scarcely locellate, long-pubescent dorsally, included within lobes. Disk c. 0.5–1 mm tall, subtubular, thick. Ovary 4-loculate; style pubescent, particularly in proximal half; stylehead subcylindric to spherical. Infructescences bonne on leafy twigs to 8 mm diam. Capsules c. 4 cm diam., spherical, long-stipitate, glabrous, pink ripening to bright rose-red, clustered in groups of 3–10 at end of rachis; stipe 1.7–2.2 cm; valves 3 or 4. Seeds 3 or 4, c. 9 mm long, with chestnut brown testa half covered in circumhilar yellow-orange aril.
Home