Melanochyla
Content
Description
Trees, in low-lying or swampy forest frequently with stilt-roots.
Leaves spiral, simple, entire, beneath usually papillose, petioled.
Inflorescences paniculate, terminal and/or axillary with bracts and bracteoles;
Flowers usually unisexual (plants dioecious).
Petals 5 (or 4), imbricate (at least at the upper half), sometimes slightly overlapping (and seemingly valvate), puberulous outside, villous or woolly on the inner surface.
Stamens 5 (or 4);
Ovary superior, sometimes partly or rarely completely concealed in the cup-shaped receptacle (seemingly semi-inferior or inferior), 1-celled, usually densely hairy;
Seed with testa adherent to the endocarp;
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Borneo present; Jawa (Jawa present); Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia present); Sumatera (Sumatera present), Peninsular Thailand
Malesia: 17 spp., in Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Java.
It may occur also in Peninsular Thailand.
It may occur also in Peninsular Thailand.
Notes
The petals are distinctly imbricate, but occasionally the overlapping in mature flowers is rather slight, which may have led HOOKER to describe them as valvate in the original description.
Melanochyla is the only Malesian genus of Anacardiaceae in which the flowers have a shorter or longer, cup-like to tubular hypanthium formed by the hollow receptacle (and calyx?); the structure of the vascular bundles invites here to study. Through this the ovary seems to be inferior, but really it is always superior.
Melanochyla is the only Malesian genus of Anacardiaceae in which the flowers have a shorter or longer, cup-like to tubular hypanthium formed by the hollow receptacle (and calyx?); the structure of the vascular bundles invites here to study. Through this the ovary seems to be inferior, but really it is always superior.