Aporosa serrata Gagnep. - EUPHORBIACEAE

English   Lao   

Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution

Botanical descriptions :

Diagnostic characters : Treelets with hirsute twigs. Leaves simple, alternate distichous, margins distinctly glandular dentate. Petiole with 2 glands at the top. Flowers unisexual on different plants. Fruit green with fleshy yellow aril.
Habit : Evergreen treelet up to 12 m high. Branches ascending to main trunk.
Trunk & bark : Bark fissured, outer bark grey-brown, inner bark brown.
Branches and branchlets or twigs : Twigs terete, hirsute with fawn hairs.
Exudates : Exudate absent.
Leaves : Leaves simple alternate distichous, 9-17 by 4-6 cm, ovate-elliptic to elliptic, apex acuminate, attenuate to rounded at base, margin glandular dentate, blade coriaceous, drying brownish or greenish above, hairy on venation above, densely hirsute below.
Midrib raised above, primary vein single, secondary veins oblique to the midrib, widely parallel and looped, tertiary veins oblique. Petiole hirsute, slightly swollen at top, with two glands at blade insertion.
Stipules ovate, hirsute, caducous.
Inflorescences or flowers : Flowers unisexual, grouped in axillary fascicles.
Fruits : Fruit is a capsule, ellipsoid, 0.8-0.9 by 0.5-0.6 cm, hirsute, green drying brownish.
Seeds : 1 seed, smooth, slightly laterally compressed, covered with fleshy yellow aril.

Habitat and ecology :

In Evergreen or mixed deciduous forests, often in moist area of open forest, at 200-300 m altitude.

Distribution :

Cambodia, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand (Northern and North-Eastern) and Laos (Khammouan province).

Remark/notes/uses :
No known uses.

Specimens studied :
BT 53, BT 472, BT 558 (Herbarium of Faculty of Sciences-NUoL, NHN-Leiden and CIRAD-Montpellier).

Literature :
Flore Générale de l’Indochine. 1927. Vol. 5, Fasc. 6. Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Laboratoire de Phanérogamie, Paris, France.
Kongkanda Chayamarit & Peter C. Van Welzen. 2005. Flora of Thailand, Vol. 8, part 1.The Forest Herbarium, Royal Forest Department, Bangkok, Thailand.

Top of the page