Lumnitzera littorea Voigt

Tree up to c. 25 m by 50 cm, mostly smaller, not buttressed, with slender knee-shaped pneumatophores. Bark dark brown, fissured, inner bark reddish-brown, sapwood yellowish-brown, heart-wood dark brown. Young branchlets reddish or grey, glabrous. Leaves usually crowded at the ends of the branchlets, narrowly obovate-ellptic, 2-8 by 1-2½ cm, rounded at the apex and cuneate at the base, with rather obscure marginal glands. Racemes short, terminal, c. 7½-3 cm long. Flowers red, shortly (1-1½ mm) pedicelled. Receptacle glabrous, tubular or narrowly infundibuliform, laterally compressed, slightly constricted just below the apex and then expanded into the calyx, 8-10 mm long, with two small, ovate, ciliolate bracteoles ½-4/5 mm long, adnate to it usually just below its middle. Calyx-lobes very broadly ovate, c. 1 mm long, slightly imbricate, margin ciliolate. Petals red, glabrous, oblong-ellptic, 4½ by 1½-2 mm. Stamens 5-10, c. 10 mm long, double the length of the petals. Style 10 mm, glabrous. Fruit glabrous, c. 10 by 4 mm longitudinally ribbed, somewhat corky in texture with a very thin inner layer of sclerenchyma and some strands of sclerenchymatous tissue dispersed throughout the pericarp.

A tropical plant. It grows on the landward side of the mangroves. It occurs in soft mud where the tide only occasionally reaches.

Uses. Wood dark grey; timber hard, durable, fine-grained, keeps its shape remarkably well; when first cut it has the scent of roses. Suitable for bridges, wharf-building, axles of carts, flooring, tool-handles, furniture, sleepers, ship-building, etc. but difficult to obtain in large pieces. Repeatedly recorded as sound for pier-posts standing sea-water conditions, especially if the bark is not removed.

Plants are grown from seed.