Aglaia sexipetala
Content
Description
Tree up to 29 m with ascending branches and a rounded crown.
Bark smooth, greyish-brown, yellowish-brown or reddish-brown with grey, green and pale brown patches, inner bark pink or brown; sap- wood yellowish-brown, orange, pinkish-yellow or reddish-brown; latex white.
Leaves imparipinnate, up to 72(–100) cm long and 50(–75) cm wide; petiole up to 17 cm, petiole, rachis and peti– olules with indumentum like the twigs.
Flowers similar to the male but slightly larger.
Flowers up to 1.5 mm in diam.; pedicels 1–2 mm long.
Petals 5.
Staminal tube 0.5–1 mm, either shallowly cup–shaped with the apical margin incurved and shallowly 5–lobed or ovoid and with the aperture less than 1 mm in diam.; anthers 5, about half to longer than the length of the tube, inserted near the base or just below the margin of the tube and protruding through the aperture, pointing towards the centre of the flower.
Fruits sub– globose or obovoid, up to 5 cm long and 4 cm in diam., yellow, reddishbrown or orange– brown, the pericarp up to 2 mm thick, hard and brittle or woody, densely covered with reddish-brown stellate hairs or scales on the outside, sometimes containing white latex.
Seed with a complete transparent or white aril.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Borneo present; Jawa (Jawa present); Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia present); New Guinea present; Philippines (Philippines present); Sumatera (Sumatera present); Thailand (Thailand present)
Thailand; Malesia: Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, Java, Philippines, New Guinea
Taxonomy
The leaves of Aglaia sexipetala have numerous stellate scales on the lower surfaces of the leaflets, sometimes interspersed with stellate hairs which have numerous short arms. The scales are sometimes peltate with a long fimbriate margin and it may then become difficult to distinguish this species from A. crassinervia which has numerous peltate scales with a short fimbriate margin, but in these cases the scales of A. sexipetala are interspersed with compact stellate hairs.
In the western part of the range, the flower of A. sexipetala has a shallow cup-shaped staminal tube, while in New Guinea the staminal tube is ovoid and has a narrower aper- ture. The absence of records of this species from the Lesser Sunda Islands, Celebes, and the Moluccas suggests that it has a disjunct distribution. Further material, especially of ripe fruits in spirit, may provide characters by which the New Guinea plants may be reliably distinguished from the remaining, western parts of the range, and therefore be recognized as a separate species (Aglaia myristicifolia).