Delarbrea collina
Content
Description
Sparsely branched shrub to 5 m high, with the multijugate leaves clustered at the ends of the branches.
Leaves c. 70-100 by 30-40 cm;
Inflorescence a terminal panicle of umbellules, rachis up to 60 cm long, bearing well-spaced secondary branches 6-25 cm long, bracts caducous;
Petals 5, c. 1.5 by ¾ mm, keeled within.
Stamens 5, 1 mm long.
Ovary sometimes prominently ribbed when dry, c. 2 mm long;
Fruit 16 by 10 mm, purplish black when mature.
Distribution
Aru Is present, Asia-Tropical: Maluku (Maluku present); New Guinea present, Australasia: Queensland (Queensland present), Babar present, Banda present, Kar Kar Is present, Lesser Sunda Is present, Madang present, New Britain present, New Caledonia present, Solomon Is present, Tenimber Is present, Timor present, Wetar present
Solomon Is. to New Caledonia and Queensland; in Malesia: Lesser Sunda Is. (Timor, Wetar, Babar), Moluccas (Tenimber Is., Banda), New Guinea (Aru Is., Kar Kar Is., Madang, New Britain). .
Notes
The most wide-ranging of any Malesian araliad. It was collected in Malesia by Forbes in Timor in 1882, when it was incorrectly identified as the New Caledonian species D. paradoxa Vieill. Eight years earlier it had been collected in the Aru Is. during the Challenger Expedition (Hemsley, Lc.) and also been referred as close to D. paradoxa. Nearly twenty years later Lauter- bach collected it in the Moluccas, when Harms described it as a new species. The statement by Harms that the genus was known previously only from New Caledonia cannot be reconciled with his note in the Pflanzenfamilien in which he recorded Britten's report of it in Timor. Solomon Islands collections were identified as D. collina Vieill. by Philipson in 1951. The arrangement of the umbellules differs in the panicles of D. collina and D. paradoxa. All the material from Malesia conforms to the characters of D. collina. The plant is evidently rare, few collections having been made in spite of its wide distribution.
It was formerly cultivated in the Botanic Garden at Bogor until about 1958, having been introduced from Banda.
It was formerly cultivated in the Botanic Garden at Bogor until about 1958, having been introduced from Banda.