Dysoxylum inopinatum

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Description

Tree to 30 m; bole to 90 cm diam. Bark fissured to conspicuously scaling and peeling upwards, dark brown; inner bark creamy with white latex; sapwood reddish; heartwood red, hard. Leaves c. 15–25 cm long, paripinnate with terminal caducous spike, pale in sicco, (2–) 3–4(–6)-jugate; petiole c. 5–9 cm long, c. 2.5 mm diam., deeply grooved adaxially, ± glabrous. Petals (4 or) 5, 7–8 by 2.5–3 mm, broadly lanceolate, valvate to weakly imbricate, white, apices acute, rather thick, glabrous. Staminal tube urceolate to subcylindrical, (sub)glabrous, white; margin subcrenulate to truncate; anthers (9) 10, c. 0.7 mm long, ovate, subapiculate, almost included; pollen shed in tetrads. Ovary (?4-) 5-locular, (sub)glabrous, each locule with 2 ± superposed ovules; style glabrous, stylehead subcapitate. Capsule c. 1.5 cm diam., (4-) 5-locular, globose, orange-red, each locule with 1 or 2 seeds. Seed c. 8 mm long, ovoid, with circumhilar aril.

Distribution

Asia-Tropical, northern and central New Guinea present

Malesia:northern and central New Guinea

Morphology

In some respects, particularly the urceolate staminal tube, this tree approaches Synoum A. Juss., a genus restricted to Australia, but the leaves there are imparipinnate and the seeds are united by a common ‘arillode’.