Dioecious tree with a simple indumentum. Leaves alternate, often subopposite and pseudoverticillate beneath the inflorescence, petiolate, stipulate, simple, subentire or shallowly toothed, subtriplinerved and penninerved, with a pair of glands toward the base of the lamina. Stipules soon deciduous. Inflorescences terminal, paniculate, the panicle-branches pseudospicate or racemose, some arising from the base; bracts small to minute, entire, those of the ♂ inflorescences many-flowered, those of the ♀ 1-flowered. Male flowers shortly pedicellate, the pedicels articulate; calyx in bud ovoid-ellipsoid, later splitting into 3–4 valvate lobes; petals 0; disc composed of ± 15 densely pubescent receptacular extra-and intra-staminal glands; stamens (6–)8(–15), filaments free, fairly long, flexuous, anthers introrse, subapicifixed, the thecae free at the base, pendulous from a produced conical connective, each unequally bilocellate, with the larger locellus on the outside, ± longitudinally dehiscent; pistil-lode 0. Female flowers shortly pedicellate, the pedicels also articulate; calyx (4–)5-lobed, the lobes valvate, later strongly reflexed; petals 0; disc composed of 6–8 thick scale-like glands truncate and pubescent at the apex; ovary 3-locular, with 1 ovule per locule; styles 3, free, entire, recurved-spreading, fimbriate. Fruit 3-lobed, loculicidally dehiscent into 3 valves, or else dehiscing septicidally into 3 bivalved cocci; exocarp slightly fleshy; endocarp crustaceous; columella persistent, narrow, triquetrous. Seeds ovoid; exotesta pseudarillate, fleshy, red; mesotesta thick, indurated, foveolate, shiny, black; endotesta distinct, grey; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat.
Home