Dysoxylum pettigrewianum F.M.Bailey

Tree to 35 m and bole diam. 1.2 m; buttresses to 2.5 m tall and 2 m out. Bark brown, smooth with conspicuous pustular lenticels to finely vertically cracked or flaking; underbark pink; sapwood pale straw; heartwood pinkish brown, hard. Twigs grey, lenticellate, angled, cicatrose, leafy ones c. 6–8 mm diam. Apical buds with fist-shaped young leaves, ± pubescent. Leaves to 80 cm, usually less, imparipinnate, 3–6-jugate, paler abaxially; petiole 6–10 cm, flattened and (in sicco) sometimes grooved adaxially, lenticellate, ± finely shortly pubescent, base swollen; rachis 2–3 mm diam., terete to grooved adaxially (in sicco), ± finely pubescent. Leaflets opposite to subopposite, glabrous or sparsely sericeous abaxially, the terminal the largest, to 20 by 5.5 cm, oblong, base obtuse to subcuneate, apex acute to abruptly acuminate, the laterals smaller the more proximal, where elliptic-ovate, bases asymmetric, obtuse, apices acute, venation brochidodrome, costae c. 12 on each side, oblique, prominulous abaxially, petiolule 4–10 mm (–15 mm on apical leaflet), swollen. Racemes up to 19 cm long, usually less, axillary when solitary or in fascicles of up to 4 or on twigs and young branches, very finely adpressed pubescent; bracts 1–1.5 mm, triangular, adpressed pubescent. Flowers sessile, sweetly scented [honey, vanilla, Dianthus barbatus (Mabberley)]. Calyx 2.5–4 mm long, cupular, rather irregularly 4-dentate, densely adpressed pubescent outside, teeth acute, ciliate. Petals 4, 8–9 mm long, linear-spatulate, acute, imbricate at least at apices, glabrous or adpressed puberulent at apices. Staminal tube glabrous with 8 emarginate to bifid lobes; anthers 8, c. 1 mm long, oblong, subsessile, alternating with lobes, brown. Disk c. 3 mm long, cylindrical, long-hairy, margin erose to irregularly lobed. Ovary pubescent, 4-locular; style adpressed pubescent; stylehead discoid to subcapitate. Infructescences to 10 cm long, or fruits solitary or paired. Fruits to 8 by 4 cm, conspicuously brown-lenticellate, glabrous, orange-brown, subspherical, stipitate and with milky latex when young then asymmetric if with aborted seeds, conspicuously 4-angled and conical at both ends when mature with white latex in pericarp. Seeds 1–4, 23 by 14 mm, ellipsoid with orange sarcotesta.

Well developed lowland and upland rain forest, but is more frequent, and reaches its best development, in lowland rain forest particularly on soils derived from basalt; at elevations up to 800 metres in northeast Australia.

UsesIn Australia, the wood is used in cabinet work.

Can be grown by seedlings.