Pseudoclausena chrysogyne
Content
Description
Trees to 25 m tall, bole to 15 m tall, dbh to 60 cm; outer bark smooth and c. 2 mm thick, unfissured and pale-brown to greyish-brown; inner bark 3–4 mm thick and redbrown; sapwood whitish with red or pink tinge.
Leaves 18–42 cm long, (3–)5–9(–15)- foliolate, brown (to olive green) when dried.
Inflorescences clustered around shoot apex or below in axils of fully expanded or expanding leaves, 1–6(–10) cm long at anthesis, each a very compact to open thyrse, branched up to second (to third) order (excl. pedicels) of which the first order branches are up to 7.5 cm long, primary rachis and all branches lacking lenticels and glabrous to tomentose with simple trichomes.
Flowers hermaphrodite (with little pollen) or (on different plant) male only (with much pollen), just prior to opening cylindrical to cask-shaped, 3–3.6 mm long, 1.4–2.6 mm diam., at maximum opening 2.9–6 mm diam.
Petals 5, free and imbricate, 2.8–4.8 by 1.5–1.8 mm, narrow-elliptic to oblong, apex acute, pale green.
Ovary very densely pubescent with short stiff trichomes, appearing golden or extremely rarely glabrous, 4–5-locular, each locule with one ovule.
Fruit a 1- or 2-seeded berry, ± globose, 1.3–1.8 cm diam., more or less rusty tomentose, with a short beak, 3–5 mm long, positioned asymmetrically on the fruit, pericarp coriaceous but lacking sclerenchyma, weakly laticiferous, parenchyma with high levels of tannins only.
Seeds 0.8–1.3 cm long and ± ellipsoidal, dark brown and shining but lacking an aril.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Borneo present; Maluku (Maluku present); Philippines (Philippines present); Sulawesi (Sulawesi present); Sumatera (Sumatera present), W New Guinea present, but not Singapore present
Indochina and MalesiaMalay Peninsula (but not Singapore), Sumatra, Borneo, Philippines, Celebes, Moluccas, W New Guinea
Ecology
The pericarp of the berries (unlike that of the closely related Walsura species) lacks sclerenchyma tissue of any sort but does have very high levels of tannin. Also, no aril is present. These features, presumably, render the fruits unpalatable to most animals.
Citation
Valeton 1904 – In: l.c. Bog.: t. 135
Bakh.f. 1968 – In: Blumea: 359.
Burkill 1935: Dict. Econ. Prod. Malay Penins.: 2252.
Steenis & Bakh.f. 1967 – In: Bot. Jahrb.: 399.
T.D. Penn. 1975: p. 474. – In: Blumea: f. 7a
Ridley 1922 – In: Fl. Malay Penins.: 412
Mabb. 1989: p. 254. – In: Tree Flora Malaya: f. 9A.