Helicia Lour.

Trees, rarely shrubs. Leaves mostly spiral, rarely subopposite or 3-4-verticillate, simple, entire or dentate (serrate), sessile or petiolate. Racemes simple, many-flowered, axillary or ramiflorous, very rarely subterminal. Flowers bisexual. Bracts small, ovate-acuminate to subulate, in Mal. spp. subpersistent or caducous. Bracteoles minute. Pedicels mostly in twos, or solitary, free or connate in their lower part, rarely entirely connate. Perianth-tubs (in Mal. spp.) straight, slender, with a clavate to subglobose limb, somewhat swollen at the base, limb straight, segments 4, becoming free and revolute in anthesis. Stamens 4, nearly sessile, inserted at the inner base of the limb; anthers oblong, connective apiculate; exine smooth. Ovary ovoid or globose, sessile; ovules 2, anatropous, ascendent, inserted at the base of the ovary or laterally attached to the wall on the ventral suture. Style slender, clavate towards the apex; stigma punctiform. Disk glands free (spaced or approximate) or ± connate into a cup. Fruit nut-or drupelike; pericarp mostly thick-coriaceous and rather hard when dry, when fresh apparently its outer part sometimes somewhat fleshy, the inner part drier and hard, rarely with a clear differentiation in endocarp and exocarp, mostly indehiscent, sometimes very tardily splitting irregularly along the ventral (raised or sulcate) suture when dry. Seeds 1-2, subglobose respectively hemispheric. Testa thin. Cotyledons fleshy, rugulose in the upper part.

Most species are confined to the substage of the non-seasonal rain-forest, though some are apparently adapted to a more or less seasonal climate. None is known to occur gregariously. Though most species occur in the montane zone between 500 and 2400 m, the total range is from sea-level to c. 3350 m on Mt Kinabalu, 2600 m in Central Celebes, and 2650 m in Java.

Uses. Timber is mostly of small size and specimens occur scattered so that the commercial value of this genus is of minor importance.