Meliosma sarawakensis
Content
Description
Evergreen, small tree, up to c. 10 m.
Leaves 2-3(-4)-jugate;
Sepals 5 (4), ovate to ovate-lanceolate, the 3 or 4 inner ones 1-1.5 mm, the outer 1 or 2 usually much smaller, often minute, densely pubescent on the outside, with entire margin.
Panicles terminal, usually more or less pendulous, flaccid, lax, narrowly pyramidal, (20-)25-55 cm, not profusely branched up to the 2nd or 3rd order, branches spreading, ± flaccid, usually slender, densely tomentose, bearing numerous flowers crowded in dense spikes;
Ovary 0.5-0.7 mm, densely pubescent.
Fruit (sub)globose, when ripe 0.7-1 cm diam.;
Distribution
Asahan present, Asia-Tropical: Borneo (Sarawak present); Sumatera (Sumatera present), NW. Borneo present, Palembang present, around Kuching and Pontianak present
Malesia: Sumatra (Asahan to Palembang) and NW. Borneo (Sarawak, around Kuching and Pontianak; common). .
Notes
The closest affinity of M. sarawakensis is doubtless with M. pinnata subsp. ridleyi to which it is very similar in all characters (they even share the red sepals). Only after some hesitation M. sarawakensis is maintained as a separate species and not made a subspecies of M pinnata. It would fit rather well into that species but is distinguished from it by a wider range of characters. The most important of its characters are the 2- or 3-jugate leaves and the densely pubescent sepals. These characters indeed are also found in M. pinnata subsp. ferruginea, but this subspecies is quite different from M. sarawakensis in various other aspects. An additional argument to the specific status of M. sarawakensis is found in the fact that it is found together with M. pinnata subsp. ridleyi in the same area and at the same altitudes in Sarawak (near Kuching) and in Sumatra (Asahan), without any sign of hybridization.