Aglaia cinnamomea
Content
Description
Tree 5–23 m high.
Outer bark grey brown, smooth, slightly peeling; middle bark pink to dark red; inner bark white to red with white streaks, layered and fibrous, with a pleasant odour; some white latex; sap- wood cream to reddish; heartwood reddish-brown to dark red.
Leaves 22– 46 cm long, 14–42 cm wide, petiole 6–14 cm.
Inflorescence 33 cm long, 24 cm wide, sparsely branched, peduncle, branches and pedicels densely covered with stellate scales and hairs which have long arms.
Flowers 2 mm long, 2.5 mm wide, ± sessile.
Petals 5.
Staminal tube c. 0.8 mm long and wide, aperture c. 0.4 mm across, anthers 1/2–1 /3 the length of the tube, with pale orange stellate scales and hairs.
Fruits 5.5 cm long, 4 cm wide, yellow or brown.
Seed 1, 2.7–3 cm long, 1.8–2 cm wide, 1.3–2 cm thick; aril thin, red or orange, with numerous veins originating from a wide raphe, almost certainly translucent when fresh.
Taxonomy
Aglaia cinnamomea also resembles A. parksii A.C. Smith (Bougainville, Solomon Islands and Fiji) in vegetative characters, but differs in its flower structure, and A. meri- dionalis Pannell (endemic to the Cape York Peninsula in Australia), but that species has a trimerous flower.
Aglaia cinnamomea resembles A. subminutiflora in its indumentum of peltate fimbriate and long-armed stellate hairs, but it is more robust; the distinction be- tween these two species is not clear-cut. However, the fruits and infructescences are usually stouter in A. cinnamomea (more ripe fruits are needed) and there are usually fewer leaflets in A. cinnamomea which tend to be oblong or elliptical in shape.
Aglaia cinnamomea is like A. elliptica, but the aperture of the staminal tube and the fruits are smaller and the pericarp thinner except in the large woody ellipsoid fruits of NGF 39109 (which are densely covered with pale compact stellate hairs on the outside).