Dolichandrone
Content
Description
Trees with 1-pinnate leaves (or scattered simple leaves, extra-Mal.), leaflets entire (or serrulate, extra-Mal.).
Flowers in few-flowered terminal racemes, salver- shaped, white, fragrant, nocturnal.
Stamens 4, didynamous, 5th rudimentary, inserted at the throat;
Capsule elongate subcylindric to ± compressed, septum very narrow, false septum very broad and parallel with the valves.
Ovules in 4-6 rows, inserted on 2 placentas in each cell, on the septum.
Seeds hyaline-winged, in the Mai. sp. rectangular with thick corky wings.
Distribution
Indo-Malesia present, Malabar present, New Caledonia present, Tropical SE. Asia present, tropical E. Africa present, tropical N. Australia present
Spp. 9, one in tropical E. Africa, 4 in tropical SE. Asia, 3 in tropical N. Australia, and one ranging widely from Malabar through Indo-Malesia to New Caledonia. .
Taxonomy
The Australian species are in habit very different from the African and Indo-Malesian ones: characteristic shrubs or small trees of xerophytic habit and xeromorphous structure, the leaves sometimes obviously not decussate, coriaceous, sometimes entire, with fine parallel ascending veins, or leaflets even needle-like. In addition I find the pods terete and the pseudoseptum not flat, but irregularly, corky swollen with deep impressions of the seeds. According to URBAN () these species would also be different in pollen from the other species. I have arranged them in subg. Coriaceae STEEN. (Thesis, 1927, 931, f. 10). They should probably be better arranged in a separate section, rather than in a subgenus.
Three spp. are distinguished; D. filiformis (DC.) F.v.M. is a fairly constant one, with 3-5 filiform leaflets, but D. heterophylla (R.BR.) F.V.M. is very variable, with simple to pinnate leaves (3-7 leaflets) also varying in width, whereas D. alternifolia (R.BR.) SEEM, with ovate, simple leaflets shows a tendency to split the leaf. Already SEEMANN () remarked that the latter two probably belong to one variable species, which opinion I now tend to share; he accepted the epithet heterophylla.
Three spp. are distinguished; D. filiformis (DC.) F.v.M. is a fairly constant one, with 3-5 filiform leaflets, but D. heterophylla (R.BR.) F.V.M. is very variable, with simple to pinnate leaves (3-7 leaflets) also varying in width, whereas D. alternifolia (R.BR.) SEEM, with ovate, simple leaflets shows a tendency to split the leaf. Already SEEMANN () remarked that the latter two probably belong to one variable species, which opinion I now tend to share; he accepted the epithet heterophylla.