Azadirachta excelsa
Content
Description
Tree to 50 m; bole to 120 cm diam., regularly cylindric or rarely slightly buttressed over major roots.
Bark smooth, pinkish grey or pinkish brown, in large trees becoming longitudinally fissured and scaling, the flakes oblong, greyish, breaking off at upper end and curling up from both ends before shedding, the bole appearing pale brownish or greyish buff and shaggy, sapwood white; heartwood light red.
Leaves 20–60(–90) cm, 7–11- jugate, pari- (or impari-)pinnate, tufted at ends of twigs; petiole 5–8 cm, ± terete, swol- len it base; leaflets 4–12.5 by 2–3.5 cm, the largest near the middle, lanceolate-elliptic, asymmetric, ± falcate, glabrous, pink when young, yellow when withering, bases un- equal, apices subacute to subacuminate, margin entire, costae c. 6–11 on each side, arcuate, tertiary venation laxly reticulate; petiolules c. 2 mm.
Petals 5–6.5 by 1.5–2.2 mm, oblong-spathulate, puberulous without, pale creamy white.
Staminal tube c. 2–2.5 mm diam., glabrous without, sparsely hairy distally within, white or greenish, 10-ribbed, each rib terminating in a subbifid lobe; anthers (8–)10, c. 0.8 mm long, sessile, slightly exserted.
Seed smelling of garlic when damaged.
Distribution
Aru Islands present, Asia-Tropical: Sulawesi (Sulawesi present); Vietnam (Vietnam present), Basilan present, Bengkulu present, East Coast present, Malacca present, Masbate present, Mindoro present, N & E present, Palawan present, Penang present, Perak present, Samar present, Selangor present, W New Guinea present, where also a village tree present
Malesia: Sumatra (Bengkulu, East coast)Malay Peninsula (Penang, Perak, Selangor, Malacca, where also a village tree), Borneo (N & E), Philippines , Celebes, Moluccas (Aru Islands), W New Guinea. Philippines (Mindoro, Masbate, Samar, Palawan, Basilan),, records this tree from Vietnam.
Uses
In the Malay Peninsula the timber is used in house-building and the young shoots are eaten as a vegetable (Corner, ll.cc.). It coppices. The seeds yield azadirach- tin (see A. indica) and the more effective insect antifeedant, marrangin .
Notes
At a distance the tree may be confused with Ailanthus integrifolia Lam. (Simaroubaceae) but the bark of that tree seems always to be smooth and leaflets wither red and not yellow (Corner, 11.cc).
Though a conspicuous tree in the north of the Malay Peninsula and specimens had been known for a long time, the identity of the tree was unknown or confused from the time of Jack until 1936 when Corner studied in Penang the trees which Jack himself may have known.
Citation
Corner 1988: p. 504. – In: Wayside Trees, ed. 3. t. 150
Mabb. 1989: p. 233. – In: Tree Fl. Malaya. f. 4.
Corner 1939: p. 263. – In: Gard. Bull. Str. Settl. t. 1, 2
Corner & Watanabe 1969: III. Guide Trop. Pl: 404. cum tab.
Merr. 1923 – In: Enum. Philipp. Flow. Pl. p 361
Elmer 1937 – In: LeaFl. Philipp. Bot. 3340.
Corner 1940 – In: Wayside Trees. t. 138
Wong 1976: p. 81. – In: Mal. For. Rec. cum tab.
Merr. 1952 – In: J. Arnold Arbor. 33. p 235
Corner 1940: p. 465. – In: Wayside Trees. t. 155