Artocarpus hispidus
Content
Description
Tree up to 20 m tall, evergreen.
Leaves spirally arranged;
stipules 0.5-1(-2.5) cm, brown subhirtellous to strigose, caducous.
stamen c. 0.7 mm long, anther 0.1 mm long;
fruits ellipsoid, 1-1.3 cm long.
Taxonomy
1This species resembles A. rigidus, from which it differs in the longer peduncle of the staminate inflorescence, the denticulate margin of the lamina, and the indumentum of the leafy twigs, consisting of long ± patent hairs with swollen bases, intermixed with distinctly shorter hairs.
3The suggested study should also include A. chama Buch.-Ham. (= A. chaplasha Roxb. = A. melinoxylus Gagnep.) which in vegetative characters largely matches the continental material circumscribed above, differing only in the shorter apices of the pistillate flowers which are up to 4 cm long (or up to 6 mm long according to ).
2This species, A. asperulus Gagnep., A. calophyllus Kurz, A. hirsutus, and A. rigidus share the globose (to ellipsoid) infructescence densely covered with up to 3-9 mm long cylindrical indurated apices of the flowers. The material north of the Malay Peninsula differs from A. hispidus and A. rigidus in the frequently branched or forked lateral veins, the tendency of having fewer lateral veins, often up to 10 pairs, and a rounded to subcordate base of the lamina. Artocarpus hirsutus from the Indian Peninsula is distinct in the pendulous spicate staminate inflorescences and the absence of interfloral bracts in the pistillate inflorescence; the other species have subglobose staminate inflorescences as in A. hispidus and A. rigidus. In the material occurring north of Peninsular Malaysia, the indumentum on leafy twigs and petioles can be appressed or ± patent, the stipules are of widely varying length, the margin of the lamina is entire or denticulate, the upper surface of the lamina smooth or ± scabrous, and the length of the peduncles varies considerably. Some of this variation may just enter Peninsular Malaysia, in Kedah and Langkawi Island (in the material indicated by Kochummen 1978: 132) as the ‘asperulus’-form. Pending the results of further study on the complex in continental Asia and its relation to the Malesian region, it is preferable to recognise for Malesia A. hispidus and A. rigidus, both as species and not as forms as has been proposed by Kochummen (1978), where the sparsely hairy and more densely hairy forms of A. rigidus are indicated as var. ‘glabra’ and var. ‘tomentosa’, respectively.