Small trees with several stems, up to 3 m tall, trunks 3-6 cm thick, rarely branched; wood coarse, long-fibrous, pithed; bark smooth, flaking, reddish-grey to grey; roots tuberous with fleshy fusiform swellings. Leaves twice compound, first division digitate, bearing vertebrate leaflets; petiole terete, 20-30 cm long, 6 mm thick, ribbed, glabrous; stipules intrapetiolar, adnate to the base of the petiole and joined to each other at the base, up to 4 cm long, hairy; leaflets spreading at an angle to the petiole, the whole sub-circular in outline, up to 30 cm in diam.; leaflets (5)-7-9-(11) per leaf, vertebrate to thrice vertebrate, rarely simple, chartaceous, thickly coriaceous when mature, glossy-green above, dark green beneath, 10-20 cm long, with 1-3 articulations, papillate-scaly at the articulations, petiolules 3-5 cm long, occasionally winged; rhachilla wings obtriangular to obhastate; pinnules up to 10 cm long, 2-4 cm broad, oblong or obovate, broadly ovate, base cuneate, margins sparsely serrate to distinctly serrate, rarely entire, mucronate. Inflorescence a terminal umbel, consisting of 8-30 pedunculate dense, cylindrical spikes arranged on the much abbreviated club-shaped, bracteate apex of the stem; peduncles of spikes 6-22 cm long; bracts subtending the peduncles joined at the base and adnate to the peduncle, bilobed, up to 3 cm long, caducous; spikes 5-12 cm long, 3-4 cm in diameter, bracts subulate, up to 10 mm long. Flowers sessile or subsessile, spirally arranged, densely compacted, buds slightly domed; calyx reduced to a 5-toothed rim. Petals 5, valvate, deltoid-acuminate, yellowish green; caducous. Stamens 5, alternating with the petals; filaments as long as the petals; anthers oblong, introrse, versatile, caducous. Ovary 2-loculed, wedge-shaped, styles 4 mm long, spreading; stigma folded, introrse. Fruit 10-15 mm long, 8-12 mm wide, wedge-shaped, angled by pressure, exocarp mauve and fleshy when ripe, calyx rim and styles persistent, fruit 1-seeded by abortion of one ovule. Seeds 5-10 mm long, obovoid, plano-convex, rugose, crested and beaked; raphe ending in a round areole; endosperm ruminate.
More
Perennial, multi-stemmed tree, up to 5 m high, rarely branched. Bark reddish grey to grey, smooth to flaking. Leaves bi-digitate, with 7-9 leaflets ± divided into 2 parts, fan-like, up to 300 mm in diam., pinnule up to 100 mm long, oblong, lower surface dull dark green, upper glossy dark green, leathery; tapering to apex and base, margins sparsely to distinctly toothed, rarely entire; rachillae bearing triangular wings; petioles 200-300 mm long; petiolules of primary leaflets 30-50 mm long, winged. Flowers in terminal umbel of spikes, 8-30 dense cylindrical spikes, up to 120 x 40 mm, on stalks up to 250 mm long; small, greenish yellow, almost sessile. Flowering time Aug.-Dec. Fruit mostly round, angular-sided, rather wedge-shaped, up to 20 x 15 mm long, fleshy, pale purplish (Sept.-Feb.).
Home
