Myristica umbrosa
Content
Description
Tree 5-26 m.
Leaves (thinly) coriaceous, elliptic-oblong or oblong(-lanceolate), 20-50 by 7-15 cm, base short-cuneate or rounded, apex acute-acuminate;
Inflorescences pedunculate, late glabrescent, between the lower leaves or just below, sometimes axillary to cataphylls on 1-3 cm long short-shoots (with apical sterile buds) on older wood;
Fruits:
Distribution
Asia-Tropical, Morobe present, Northern Prov present, Papua New Guinea present
Malesia: Papua New Guinea (Morobe and Northern Prov.), a local endemic.
Taxonomy
2 LAE 59184 (Manus I., low altitude) distributed under the name M. cf. umbrosa or perhaps sp. nov., comes close to M. umbrosa but it differs in general aspect: more slender twigs, thinner and smaller leaves; fruits about identical with those of M. umbrosa. Because the collection from Manus I. is so far from the other collections of M. umbrosa, all from a restricted area in SE Papua New Guinea, it may represent an undescribed species, but more collections should corroborate this.
1 Foreman (1974) described the male flowers as follows: "pedicels 9-10 mm long; bracteole large, surrounding one side of the perianth, 8 mm long, caducous, mid-brown tomentulose; buds mid-brown tomentulose, ± subglobose, 10-11 mm long; 3 acute perianth lobes about half as long as perianth; staminal column 6 mm long; stalk 2.5 by 3 mm long, brown tomentose"; and the female flowers as "pedicels 4 mm long; perianth 8 mm long; ovary mid-brown tomentulose, c. 6 mm long." I have not seen such mature well-developed male flowers. The measure of the stalk of the staminal column seems unexpectedly stout. Foreman (1978: 212) described the peduncle of the male inflorescences as 3.5 cm long, which possibly rests on a mistake; the peduncle actually reaches 10-15 mm, as also stated by him in his 1974 publication.