English Lao
Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution
| Diagnostic characters : | Evergreen trees with bark black. Leaves simple, alternate and distichous. Flowers white, fascicled axillary , rami-or cauli-florous. Fruit an ovoid berry. |
| Habit : | Evergreen tree up to 15 m high, branches ascending. |
| Trunk & bark : | Trunk straight. Bark smooth, black. |
| Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Branchlets and twigs terete, glabrous when mature. |
| Exudates : | Exudate absent. |
| Leaves : | Leaves simple, alternate and distichous, 14-20 by 3.5-6 cm, narrowly elliptic, apex acute and cuspidate or acuminate, base attenuate, margin entire, blade chartaceous, glabrous on both sides except along the midrib and secondary veins, glossy below. Midrib flat above, primary vein single, secondary veins oblique to the midrib, widely parallel, tertiary veins oblique. Petiole glabrescent on mature leaves while pubescent when young. Stipule absent. |
| Inflorescences or flowers : | Flowers white, grouped in cyme or fascicle, axillary or ramiflorous on knobs. Pedicel 2-5 mm long, pubescent. |
| Fruits : | Fruit berry, ovoid, pubescent, shortly apiculate. |
| Seeds : | Seed one. |