Xerospermum Blume

Medium-sized trees (or shrubs), dioecious. Indumentum of solitary simple hairs only. Branchlets terete, lenticels many, scattered, pustular but usually inconspicuous; wood reddish brown. Leaves paripinnate, (unifoliolate to) 1-or 2-(or 3-)jugate, without pseudo-stipules; petiole subterete to terete, at the base slightly swollen and hollowed above; neither petiole nor rachis winged. Leaflets opposite, neither papillate nor glaucous be-neath, glabrous or puberulous on the nerves below and on the midrib, glabrescent, usually on the lower side with few to several orbicular flat glands in the nerve axils and/or scattered all over the leaf surface, mainly in the basal half; no domatia; base (sub)symmetrical; margin entire. Inflorescences usually solitary in the lower leaf axils and tufted in the upper leaf axils; these tufts consist of a central axis and two to several branches in the axils of bud scales; the more branches to a cluster the shorter and the more equal they are; the central axis of such a cluster may end in a vegetative terminal bud and develop later in a vegetative branch; bracts usually caducous. Flowers actinomorphic, 4-or 5-merous, unisexual. Sepals free or slightly connate, either all about equal or the outer two slightly smaller, the outer usually with a narrow, the inner with a broad membranous margin to nearly completely membranous. Petals about equal to or slightly shorter than the sepals, sessile to variably clawed, without a scale, woolly ciliate. Disc uninterrupted or interrupted, not lobed, in female flowers inconspicuous. Stamens (7) 8 (9), hardly to distinctly exserted in male flowers; filaments at least partly woolly; anthers attached dorsally at the base, dehiscence latrorse, glabrous or with a few hairs, sometimes ciliate. Pistil 2-(or 3-)locular; ovary deeply lobed, warty with on top of each war a stiff brown hair; style apical, columnar, broadened to the apex, relatively short, with a few hairs or glabrous; stigma arched, elliptic with a longitudinal groove, (deeply cleft in fruit); ovules 1 per locule, nearly basally attached. Fruits with 1 (or 2) lobes developed, in the latter case lobes widely spreading, not winged, the lobes ellipsoid to subglobular, capsular, probably finally loculicidally dehiscent; the fruit wall outside spiny, warty, or colliculate to granular, soon glabrous, spines broader than high; inside smooth or slightly colliculate, glabrous. Seeds ellipsoid to subglobular, completely covered by a thin sarcotesta except for the basal hilum; testa inside with a pocket in which the radicle fits.

Uses The thin yellow to orange sarcotesta is eaten, but is not of importance. The opinions on the timber quality are rather divergent: fire wood, inferior timber, or a good, tough, and durable timber. See Heyne Nutt. Pl. Indon. ed. 3 1950 997 Burkill Dict. Econ Prod. Malay Penins. ed. 2 2 1966 2313 .