Daphniphyllum gracile var. gracile
Content
Description
Small slender trees or shrubs of lower storey or becoming part of canopy, up to 22 m high, bole up to 45 cm in diam.
Bark grey or grey-brown with vertical fissures, sub- smooth, greenish, white laterally on lenticellate ridges, blaze pale greenish white, brown or dark pustular and horizontally ridged, undersurface orange green, middle bark green and red, inner bark light brown, straw brown, white or pinkish, cream, light orange- brown and red mottled, slash 5 mm thick, underbark orange, brownish green to reddish brown with light green to white lines;
Leaves alternate to fasciculate; blades from elliptic, narrowly elliptic to obovate, sometimes slightly oblique, 4-20 by 1.2-7.5 cm, apex mucronulate to mucronate, sometimes cuspidate, base cuneate to obtuse, margins revolute, firmly chartaceous or subcoriaceous, shining brown or green on both surfaces, papillate and frequently glaucous beneath or purplish green or light green tinged with purple in young leaves, dark yellow-green, or olive green in old leaves, lateral veins 7-14 pairs, impressed above, slightly ascending below, dark reddish purple or red on the lower side of midrib; petiole triangular, sulcate above, articulate, red, whitish grey or silvery, 1-15 cm long.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: New Guinea present; Sulawesi (Sulawesi present)
Malesia: Celebes, New Guinea.
Notes
The collection of possesses two kinds of leaves which are very important characters to distinguish plants of D. gracile and D. papuanum. The young leaves in the female vegetative branches bear oblanceolate leaves with acute or cuspidate apex but leaves on the fruiting branches bear lanceolate leaves with acuminate apex and smooth drupes. The young leaves agree with those of var. gracile and the old leaves and mature drupes agree with those of D. papuanum var. tuberculatum. Possibly they are ecotypes.