Ceratopetalum succirubrum
Description
Trees up to 35 m tall, the bole to 27 m by 60 cm diameter, often with small buttresses, the bark exuding a red sap slowly turning colourless.
Leaves trifoliolate, petiolate;
Stipules triangular-ovate, 3-13 by 2.5-6 mm, usually early caducous.
Inflorescences terminal, often with adjoining axillary ones, many-flowered, up to c. 30 by 20 cm, sometimes with one or more pairs of reduced leaves at subdistal nodes, sometimes 1 or 2 additional collateral or serial branches at lowest nodes;
Flowers 4(-5)-merous, apetalous, with short hirsute pedicel 0.5 mm thick, articulating at base of hypanthium or up to 1 mm below it.
Superior part of ovary 0.5-0.8 by 0.7-1 mm, ± densely hirsute;
Fruit with ovary c. 5 by 3 mm, the styles up to 3 mm long, and the sepals enlarged up to 15 by 5 mm.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: New Guinea present, NE Australia present, New Britain present, Normanby I present, Teluk Cendrawasih present, Waigeo present, islands of Geelvink Bay present
NE Australia (Atherton Tablelands) and Malesia: widespread in New Guinea, including Waigeo and the islands of Geelvink Bay (Teluk Cendrawasih) in the west and Normanby I. and New Britain in the east.
Morphology
2. Perry (1949) mentioned that leaflets in specimens from Australia tend to be smaller than in those from New Guinea, and that the anthers have a slightly more prominent apex in Australia. A.C. Rozefelds (pers. comm.) suggests that differences in the morphology of the anthers between the types of C. succirubrum from Australia and C. tetrapterum from New Guinea may have taxonomic significance, as may variation in the size of the fruits within New Guinea.
1 The flowers are creamish or white with a greenish disc. In fruit the calyx lobes are purplish, purplish green, or crimson with a green centre (perhaps immature).