English Lao
Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution
| Diagnostic characters : | Leaves paripinnate and imparinnate, crowded at the apex of the branches, leaflets opposite, base acute and asymmetrical. Flowers polygamous. Fruit a capsule, seeds with orange-red aril. |
| Habit : | Evergreen tree up to 8 m. tall, about 15 cm. in DBH, branches ascending or horizontal to main trunk. |
| Trunk & bark : | Trunk longitudinal fissured, bark up to 1 cm. thick, blackish-grey, inner bark brown. |
| Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Branches pubescent, the first twigs yellow, tomentose then glabrescent, terminal buds densely covered with yellow hairs. |
| Exudates : | Exudate absent. |
| Leaves : | Both imparipinnately and paripinnately compound leaves, alternate, crowded at the apex of branchelets, rachis up to 50 cm. long, petiole up to 10 cm. long, opposite leaflets 9-12, oblong-elliptic 12-15 x 3-5 cm. in length, the lower pair are the smallest, apex acute-acuminate, base acute and asymmetric, margin entire, glabrous on both surface. The veins prominent below, with a single midrib, secondary veins about 5-8 pairs, obtuse, tertiary veins reticulate. Petiolule up to 1 cm. long. |
| Inflorescences or flowers : | Inflorescence shorter than leaf, less than 30 cm. Long. Flowers polygamous, globose, yellow, sessile, 3 bractiole on the base. Male inflorescence pedunculate but female solitary and axillary spike. |
| Fruits : | Fruit is a thick capsule, rounded about 1.5 cm. in diameter, thick walled, glabrous. Green flushed with pink then red, later dehiscent into segments, 3 loci, with persistent calyx. |
| Seeds : | A few, black with orange-red aril, globose. |