Tree to 20 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark on trunk and branches rough, firm, fibrous, with interlocking fissures, spongy, grey or brown, smaller branches shedding in ribbons. Juvenile stem rounded in cross-section, slightly warty or smooth; juvenile leaves always sessile and opposite at first but very shortly petiolate by node ca 16, inconsistently opposite or alternate well into small sapling stage ( Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.6–2.7 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 7–20 cm long, 1–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, dull, green to grey-green, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands island and intersectional. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–1 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long. Mature buds ovoid to fusiform, 0.4–0.5 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, green to yellow, smooth, scar present, operculum rounded to slightly beaked to conical, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid to oblong, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, stigma blunt or tending to pin-head shaped, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.3 cm long), cup-shaped to hemispherical, 0.3–0.5 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm wide, disc raised-convex to annular or oblique to vertical, valves 3 or 4, broad, exserted or near rim level. Seeds black, brown or grey, 1.5–2.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, often pointed at one end, lacunose, dorsal surface smooth or shallowly pitted, hilum ventral. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons oblong to bilobed; stems rounded in cross-section, warty or smooth; leaves sessile or very shortly petiolate, opposite for 6 to 12 pairs then becoming alternate, narrowly elliptic-oblong, 4–8.2 cm long, 0.6–2.2 cm wide, base rounded to tapering, margin entire, apex rounded or pointed, concolorous, dull, green to grey-green.
Home