Paranephelium
Content
Description
Trees or sometimes shrubs, monoecious.
Leaves imparipinnate or (pari)pinnate, 1-6-jugate;
Inflorescences ramiflorous, axillary, or terminal.
Flowers unisexual, regular.
Sepals (4 or) 5(-7), slightly connate to free, all equal (to very unequal), not petaloid, outside white to dark yellow hairy, margin ciliate, inside white sericeous, no glands, margin entire.
Petals (4 or) 5(-7), longer than the sepals, distinctly clawed to broadly truncate at base, outside usually glabrous to laxly woolly, inside glabrous;
Stamens 5-8 (or 9), distinctly exserted in male flowers, glabrous;
Fruits capsular, ± globular, sessile, not winged, smooth via rough, ribbed, or warty to densely spiny, loculicidally dehiscing with 3 or 4 mostly unequal valves or tearing apart at random;
Seeds usually 1 per fruit only, about globular to slightly 2- or 3-lobed;
Distribution
Asia-Temperate: China South-Central (Yunnan present); Hainan (Hainan present), Asia-Tropical: Borneo present; Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia present); Philippines (Philippines present); Sulawesi (Sulawesi present); Sumatera (Sumatera present); Thailand (Thailand present); Vietnam (Vietnam present), Burma present, Mindanao present, SE Asia present, W Malesia present
4 species, distributed in SE Asia from Yunnan and Burma to Hainan, Vietnam, and Thailand, and in W Malesia: Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Philippines (Mindanao); the citation for Celebes by , is neither repeated in his revision of the genus, nor confirmed elsewhere and seems rather improbable.
Uses
Of slight importance, only the seeds are eaten; oil pressed from the seeds was formerly used for lamps.
Notes
1. The flowers are usually unisexual, the plant is usually monoecious. Sometimes, however, the stamens and the pistil are both well developed and the flowers may be bisexual. On the other hand, some specimens seem to bear flowers of one sex only; accordingly, these flowers may be dioecious.
2. The variability of the fruit in shape as well as in appendages of the surface is rather remarkable at first sight, and delimitation of the species on fruit characters, as by Radlkofer, appeared reasonable. Two problems developed: 1) the series of fruit shapes and of different kinds of appendages showed no clear interruptions; 2) most fruit characters did not show any clear correlation with other characters. From study of fruits collected from the same tree, but at different times, it became clear that characters other than those of the fruit are of greater importance in the species delimitation.
3. The genus nearest allied to Parenephelium seems to be Amesiodendron. The latter genus is clearly distinct by its paripinnate leaves and the hairy filaments of the stamens.
2. The variability of the fruit in shape as well as in appendages of the surface is rather remarkable at first sight, and delimitation of the species on fruit characters, as by Radlkofer, appeared reasonable. Two problems developed: 1) the series of fruit shapes and of different kinds of appendages showed no clear interruptions; 2) most fruit characters did not show any clear correlation with other characters. From study of fruits collected from the same tree, but at different times, it became clear that characters other than those of the fruit are of greater importance in the species delimitation.
3. The genus nearest allied to Parenephelium seems to be Amesiodendron. The latter genus is clearly distinct by its paripinnate leaves and the hairy filaments of the stamens.