Dysoxylum gaudichaudianum Miq.

Trees to 36 m; bole to 80 cm diam,., fluted; buttresses to 2.5 m tall, 3.5 m out, concave, plank-like. Bark grey-brown, smooth to scaling, lenticellate to densely pustular; inner bark creamish, flecked orange; sapwood creamish. Crown rather irregular, of massive branches and twigs with large terminal rosettes of leaves; twigs conspicuously cicatrose, cicatrices to 1 cm, scutellar; leafy twigs to 2 cm diam., ± lenticellate with wide pith sometimes inhabited by ants. Apical buds with fist-shaped young leaves. Leaves 30–125 cm, imparipinnate, up to 14-jugate, the distal leaflets developing some time after the more proximal, drying yellowish; petiole 3–8 cm, 3–5 mm diam., terete to flattened adaxially, glabrescent to softly pubescent, base swollen; rachis 4–5 mm diam., glabrescent to ± pubescent. Leaflets opposite to subopposite, the subterminal the largest, to 30 by 10 cm, the apical and most distal sometimes falling before developing, the more proximal smaller and even substipuloid in form, oblong-ovate, glabrous or weakly pubescent on midrib adaxially, glabrescent to softly pubescent or even tomentose abaxially, base strongly asymmetric obtuse to subcordate distally, acute to cuneate proximally, joining midrib up to 1 cm distal to junction of obtuse side and midrib, apex acuminate, nerves c. 10–12 on one side, 8–10 on other, prominent on both surfaces in sicco, arcuate, not linked at margin; petiolules 0–3 mm. Thyrses to 70 cm, axillary to supra-axillary, pendent, 1–2-branched, the primary to 20 cm, the more distal shorter, the secondary to 1.5 cm bearing fascicles of sessile flowers; bracts c. 3 mm long, long-triangular, pubescent. Flowers white to creamy yellow, somewhat foetid (Lasianthus-like, Mabberley); bracteoles c. 5, imbricate, orbicular, grading imperceptibly into sepals. Sepals 5, 2 mm long, adpressed pubescent, abaxially concave at base, margin ciliate; calyx cupular, c. 2.5 mm long and diam. Petals (4 or) 5, c. 12–14 by 2.5–3 mm, linear-lanceolate, valvate, sometimes weakly imbricate at apices, adpressed pubescent without, glabrous within, adnate to staminal tube in proximal half. Staminal tube ± sericeous on both sides, margin with 10 ± bifid lobes; anthers (9 or) 10(–15), c. 1 mm long, narrowly oblong, locellate, glabrous, attached in notches between lobes, ± protruding from tube, subsessile. Disk c. 2.5 mm long, cylindrical, subglabrous to adpressed pubescent especially within, margin ± 5-lobed to irregularly crenate. Ovary densely long-sericeous, 5-locular, each locule 2-ovulate; style terete, long sericeous in lower 3/4; stylehead short-cylindrical to subdiscoid. Fruit c. 3 cm diam., flattened globose, 5-lobed, densely yellow-brown tomentose, cerebriform in sicco. Seeds up to 10, red (raphearil cum sarcotesta), c. 1 cm long, plano-convex, borne on white carpel walls. Seedlings with simple leaves.

Primary and secondary forest including swamp forest, bamboo woodlands and forests on limestone, at elevations up to 1,800 metres. Well developed rain forest to 300 metres, but probably at its best in gallery forest on river flats.

UsesThe tree has medicinal properties and is well known in the Philippines, where its uses were recorded in the seventeenth century by Mercado [see Fern.-Vill. Blanco Fl. Filip. 3 4 2 1880 VI, 17 ]as Aguio or Iguio, and it may be sometimes planted [ Merr. Fl. Manila 1912 276 ]. It has been widely used as an emetic (K. Heyne, l.c., Quisumbing, l.c.) but it has been recorded that in Papua New Guinea two deaths resulted from taking an infusion of the bark in coconut milk for this purpose (Henty). Infusions are said to be piscicidal and insecticidal in the Trobriand Islands (Henty).

Can be grown by seedlings.