Home
A small to medium sized tree. It grows up to 10 m high. The crown is rounded. The bark is dark grey and cracked along its length forming a "crocodile" bark. The leaves can be crowded near the ends of very short branches. The leaves are oval or spoon like and 6 cm long by 2 cm wide. They are dark green and glossy above and paler underneath. There can be fine hairs underneath. The leaves taper to both ends. The edges roll under slightly. The edges are wavy. The leaf stalk is 1-5 mm long. The flowers are creamy-white and have a sweet scent. The male flowers are 8 mm long in loose clusters of 2-12 flowers in the axils of fallen leaves. The female flowers are larger up to 10 mm long and in groups or 2-3 in the axils of leaves. The fruit resemble acorns. They are 2.5 cm long by 1 cm wide. They are yellow when mature. They have a sharp tip. The cup has 4 lobes and covers about a quarter of the length. The fruit are edible.
Leaves subcoriaceous, dark green, glossy, usually drying blackish, scattered on long shoots, but mostly crowded at ends of very short spur–shoots; lamina up to 6x2 (7 x 3·5) cm., oblanceolate to spathulate, apex rounded to subacute, base cuneate, margin plane; lower surface sparsely puberulous especially on the midrib; lateral nerves in c. 7–9 pairs, indistinct; tertiary nerves and veins indistinct on both surfaces; petiole c. 0·2 cm. long.
Bark on bole and branches dark grey, very thick, deeply fissured longitudinally and cracked transversely and looking like Crocodile skin, the fissures 1–2 cm. deep and 1–3 cm. apart; sometimes a multiple–stemmed shrub.
Male flowers in 2–12–flowered, rather lax cymes, borne below the leaves towards base of spur shoots, and in axils of fallen leaves on long shoots; peduncle c. 0·1 cm. long, pedicels very slender, up to 0·4 cm. long.
Stamens 0·4–0·5 cm. long, usually distinctly exserted, 9 or 12, inserted on corolla–tube, one opposite to and 2 alternating with each lobe; anthers 0·15–0·2 cm. long, lanceolate, not apiculate, densely setulose.
Female flowers subsessile, solitary or in fascicles of 2–5, at base of spur shoots and in leaf–axils and axils of fallen leaves on long shoots.
Ovary 0·3 x 0·25 cm, obovoid, glabrous; style 0–15 cm. long, stout, ending in a large, irregularly lobed fleshy stigma; locules 6, uniovulate.
Fruiting calyx c. 0·5 cm. long, the tube shorter than the lobes, much wider than the pedicel, lobes rounded or obtuse.
Staminodes 3, c. 0·3 cm. long, attached to corolla–tube and alternating with the lobes, minutely setulose at apex.
Calyx 0·15–0·2 cm. long, glabrous except for minute marginal setulae; lobes 3–4, deltate, 0·1–0·15 cm. long.
Corolla 0·6–0·8 cm. long, rotate, glabrous; tube c. 0·15 cm. long; lobes 3–4, ovate–deltate.
Calyx and corolla similar to male but up to 0·4 and 0·9 cm. long respectively.
Fruit up to 2 x 0·9 cm., glabrous, fusiform, style persistent.
Small deciduous tree up to 8 m. tall.
Seed 1, ellipsoid; endosperm smooth.
Pistillode minute, glabrous.
