Dillenia scabrella Roxb. - DILLENIACEAE

Basionym : Colbertia scabrella D.Don

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Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution

Botanical descriptions :

Diagnostic characters : Deciduous trees with scaly bark, hissing when cut. Leaves .with secondary vein paralell and dominant on the lower surface. Flowers yellow, large and very showy, arranged in fascicle on old and very short twig, long pedicel with bractlets, two types of stamens numerous, the inner long and curved enveloping the shorter serie. Fruit globular surrounded by enlarged fleshy sepals.
Habit : Deciduous tree up to 25 m high. Branches ascending to main trunk.
Trunk & bark : Trunk straight. Bark scaly, grey or brown greyish or light brown or pale yellow, inner bark orange red. Wood light cream. .
Branches and branchlets or twigs : Twigs terete, lenticelled, young twigs pubescent, becoming glabrous when mature with triangular leaf scars along the twig.
Exudates : Exudate absent.
Leaves : Leaves simple alternate and spiral, 30-40 x 15-20 cm oblong to broadly elliptic, apex and base acute to obtuse, margin serrate or undulate, slightly ciliate, with hard mucron at the end of secondary nerves, blade leathery, densely hairy above becoming glabrescent, tomentose beneath.
Midrib flat above, primary vein single, secondary veins pinnate oblique to the midrib, widely parallel, tertiary veins finely reticulate. Petiole long, margin pubescent at base, becoming glabrescent when mature, caniculated and semi-amplexicaule.
Stipules present, soon falling off.
Inflorescences or flowers : Flowers greenish-purple in buds, yellow very showy, arranged in fascicle on old and very short twig, long pedicel with triangular bractlets. .
Fruits : Fruit berry-like, globular, about 1cm in diameter, composed of carpels enveloped by thickened fleshy sepals, calyx persistent.
Seeds : Numerous seeds.

Habitat and ecology :

In dry mixed deciduous to hill evergreen forest, from 500 to 1200 m altitude. Flowering in February to March, fruiting from April.

Distribution :

Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, India (Type), Nepal, Thailand (Northern), Vietnam and Laos (Bokeo, Bolikhamxay, Khammouane and LouangNamtha).

Remark/notes/uses :
Wood is poor and of little use. The tree has ornamental value. The sour fruits are edible.

Specimens studied :
BT 306, BT 421 (Herbarium of Faculty of Sciences-NUoL, NHN-Leiden and CIRAD-Montpellier).

Literature :
Busban Na Songkhla & Chirayuphin Chandraprasong. 2001. Dillenia scabrella (D.Don) Wall., Dilleniaceae, a new record for Thailand. Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany) 29.
Flore Générale de l’Indochine. 1907. Vol.1, Fasc. 1. Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de Phanérogamie, Paris, France.

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