Pometia

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Pometia

Description

Medium-sized to large trees, often buttressed, with a red exudate when cut, monoecious. Leaves spirally arranged, paripinnate, 4-13-jugate; Inflorescences terminal and sometimes in the upper leaf axils, thyrsoid; Flowers actinomorphic, unisexual. Sepals 5, slightly to more than halfway connate, valvate in bud, the 2 outer ones usually slightly smaller, not petaloid, entire, persistent in fruit. Petals 5 (rarely 0), much shorter to distinctly longer than the calyx, not or hardly clawed, (nearly) entire, without appendages. Stamens 5 (6), in male flowers long exserted; Ovules 1 per ce11. Fruits sessile, mostly only 1 part developed, indehiscent, smooth, glabrous, red to black when ripe; Seeds oblique ovoid, red-brown, fully enveloped by a thin fleshy arillode, hilum orbicular, c. 5 mm diam.

Distribution

Andaman present, Asia-Temperate: Taiwan (Taiwan present), Asia-Tropical: Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka present), Indo-Chinese Peninsula present, Nicobar Islands present, Pacific present: Fiji (Fiji present); Samoa (Samoa present); Tonga (Tonga present)
Two species; Sri Lanka, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indo-Chinese Peninsula, Taiwan, Malesia, and Pacific to Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. See .

Ecology

Dispersal probably mainly by fruit bats and by birds (), possibly also to some extent by water as at least some forms of P. pinnata are common along river banks and as the fruits are buoyant for a few days ().
In both species large witches' brooms are a common and conspicuous feature; they represent mostly repeatedly dissected leaves, but sometimes also (parts of) inflorescences; the origin is unknown.

Notes

1. Pometia seems nearest allied with Dimocarpus with which it shares characters like the orbicular glands on the lower side of the leaflets and, when the leaflets are incise d, the typical nervation. They also have similarities in floral structure, the free arillode, and the tendency to develop pseudo-stipules (as in Otonephelium, from the same alliance).
2. The name Dabanus Kuntze is illegitimate because of the citation of Pometia as a synonym.
3. The pseudo-stipules are rather variably developed. Usually, the lower 2 or 3 pairs of leaflets are progressively more or less strongly reduced and stipule-like. The reduction of the basal pair is distinctly correlated with its place on the petiole: the nearer to the base, the more reduced it is. It may vary from a pair of normal, though smallish leaflets inserted on the petiole some distance above its base to a pair of very small, strongly falcate leaflets, with the basiscopic side completely suppressed. If these pseudo-stipules are attached slightly above the base they are rather persistent, or only the blade is caducous and the petiolule is left; if they are attached at the very base they are often caducous and, being ± sessile, leave only an inconspicuous scar.

Citation

Kuntze 1891 – In: Rev. Gen. Pl.: 143
Blume 1825: Bijdr.: 229
Jacobs 1962: pp. 109-144. – In: Reinwardtia
Radlk. 1932: pp. 924-936. – In: Engl., Pflanzenr. 98