Turraea breviflora
Placement status: name or taxon excluded (unspecific)
Content
Description
Suckering shrublet to 1 m tall, making stands of branching stems of 6 mm diam.; taproots long, tenacious.
Leaves distichously arranged, 12–20 by 4–5 cm, elliptic to weakly obovate, somewhat bullate, subglabrous, pale abaxially; apex gradually long-acuminate; base acute to cuneate; venation prominent on both surfaces in sicco, midrib sparsely pubescent proximally, major veins 7–10 on each side, arcuate and looped at margin.
Flowers in 3–6-flowered fascicles or cymes, in axils of leaves present or lost; branches 2–4 mm long, pubescent; pedicels 4–9 mm long, pubescent.
Petals 5, 6–7 by 2–3 mm, narrowly ovate, valvate, reflexed at anthesis, white.
Staminal tube a little shorter than petals, white, bearing 10 filiform appendages alternating with anthers; anthers 10 with apical appendage.
Ovary 5–locular, each locule 1-ovular, or, rarely, apparently 3-locular and some locules 2-ovular, pubescent with upward-pointing simple hairs; style c. 5 mm, pubescent; stylehead capitate, 5-lobed, orange.
Fruit not observed.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Malaya (Singapore present), Johore present, Selangor present
Malesia: known only from a few localities in the Malay Peninsula (Selangor, Johore) and Singapore.
Taxonomy
This plant resembles no other Malesian Meliacea and, in the field, may be readily confused with Icacinaceae or other families. It is known from very well-worked sites such as Bukit Lagong and Ulu Gombak in Selangor but has never been found in fruit and the number of flowering collections made is small. No doubt it is frequently overlooked as it grows amongst tree seedlings and saplings which it greatly resembles. Ridley placed it in Turraea as it seemed the closest genus to him but he was hesitant and thought it might represent a new genus, though refrained from describing it as such until the fruit should be found. Harms placed it near the Turraea species of the Mascarenes formerly referred to the separate genus, Quivisia. It is to be excluded from Turraea because it differs in its habit, indumentum, corolla aestivation, disk and the usual number of ovules in each locule, while it seems to be dioecious. In its indumentum, it approaches Munron a to which genus it seems on the whole more closely allied, but it differs from that genus, as presently understood, in its habit, valvate corolla, the usual number of ovules in each locule and apparent dioecy. In short, either it represents an undescribed genus or our concept of Munronia must be enlarged.