Gonystylus keithii Airy Shaw

Shrub or tree, 4½-26 m by 15-90 cm. Bark of twigs blackish-grey. Leaves elliptic-oblong to oblanceolate, 13-24 by 4-9 cm, base broadly cuneate or almost rounded, apex abruptly and shortly cuspidate-acuminate, chartaceous, usually drying conspicuously discolorous, greyish-green above (with a very narrow purplish-brown margin) and pinkish-brown below, practically glabrous throughout; nervation comparatively lax, primary nerves 12-15 pairs, widely patulous, distinctly differentiated from the secondary nerves; petiole 1-1½ cm, rather slender, minutely puberulous or glabrescent. Inflorescences mostly terminal, rather simple, 9-12½ cm long, sparsely puberulous, the short branchlets densely grey-subsericeous. Pedicels slender, up to 2 cm, densely ochraceous-tomentellous. Sepals ovate or oblong-ovate, c. 8 by 3-5 mm, densely subsericeous within and without. Petals 20-22, filiform-subulate, c. 5 mm, often uncinate-recurved at the apex, conspicuously white-pustulate within towards the apex, each pustule bearing a short retrorse seta. Style glabrous. Fruit (when mature) at least 6½ cm long, rugose. Seed 4 by 2¾ cm, smooth, chestnut coloured; calyx persistent, scarcely enlarged.

Evergreen rainforests, growing in areas not subject to seasonal inundation, mostly on sandy soils; at elevations up to 410 metres.

Uses. As fish poison (pounded fruit mixed with ash) and as medicine (unspecified), in Br. North Borneo.

Can be grown by seedlings.