Aralidium pinnatifidum
Content
Description
Shrub or small tree up to c. 10 m, rarely reaching 20 m and 25 cm ø, glabrous in its vegetative parts;
Leaves spaced with distinct internodes, usually c. 30 by 22 cm or more, ± regularly pinnately incised, frequently as deep as the midrib, lobes oblong- acuminate and decurrent on the midrib, c. 21l2 cm wide or more, the lobing sometimes irregular, and occasionally the blade entire and broadly ovate (up to 25 by 20 cm) or rarely lanceolate, leaf margin either entire or coarsely dentate, especially on the terminal lobe;
Flowers numerous, small (buds c. 2.5 mm long), fragrant, creamy or red-tinged, ovary, calyx lobes and petals densely covered in a minute but coarse puberulence.
Panicles terminal, or occasionally in the upper axils, to 50 cm long, pendulous, puberulous;
Fruit usually obliquely ellipsoid, tapering to the apex and c. 3-4.5 cm long, but rarely subspherical, white when immature, ripening to purplish or black, juicy;
Seed broadly ellipsoid, 2-2.5 cm long, with the surface patterned with deep ruminations.
Distribution
Anambas Is present, Asia-Tropical: Borneo present; Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia present, Singapore present); Sumatera (Sumatera present), Kedah present, Peninsular Thailand present, Siantan present, Simalur I present
Peninsular Thailand; in Malesia: Malay Peninsula (from Kedah southwards common; Singapore), throughout Sumatra (also in Simalur I.), Anambas Is. (Siantan) and throughout Borneo.
Notes
Entire leaves are not infrequent throughout the range of the species, so that the recognition of a second species using this character is not justified. Coarsely dentate leaf-margins were also employed as a specific character but are merely a minor variation. Some specimens from Mt Kinabalu have rather small globose fruits, but the typical form of fruit also occurs on that mountain.