Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

1. Dysoxylum, Blume

1. Dysoxylum, Blume.

Large usually glabrous trees. Leaves simple, alternate, pinnate; leaflets entire. Flowers in lax axillary panicles. Calyx small, 4–5-toothed -lobed or -partite, imbricate. Petals 4–5, linear-oblong, spreading, valvate. Staminal tube cylindrical, dentate or crenulate at the mouth; anthers 8–10, included. Disc tubular, sheathing the ovary. Ovary 3–5-celled; ovules usually 2 in each cell. Capsule globose or pyriform, coriaceous, 1–5-celled, loculicidally 2–5-valved. Seeds with or without an aril, large, oblong, exalbuminous; cotyledons very large.

A considerable genus of large forest trees, best represented in tropical Asia and the Malay Archipelago, but with several species in Australia and the Pacific islands. The single New Zealand species is endemic.

1.D. spectabile, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 41.—A handsome round-headed tree 25–50 ft. high; trunk 1–3 ft. in diam. Leaves unequally pinnate, glabrous, 9–18 in. long; leaflets 3–4 pairs, alternate, petioled, 3–7 in., ovate-oblong or oblong-obovate, acute, oblique at the base, undulate. Panicles 6–18 in. long, pendulous, usually springing from the trunk or branches far below the leaves, page 96rarely axillary, sparingly branched. Flowers waxy-white, 1½ in. diam., shortly pedicelled. Calyx-lobes small, ciliate. Petals 5, linear, spreading or recurved. Staminal tube cylindric, fleshy, crenate. Style slender, exserted beyond the staminal tube; stigma discoid. Capsule large, broadly obovoid, 1 in. long, 3–4-celled. Seeds 2 in each cell, enveloped in an orange aril.—Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 64, 65; Students' Fl. 87. Hartighsea spectabilis, A. Juss, in Mem. Mus. Par. xix. (1830) 228; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 597; Raoul, Choix, 47; Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 616, 617; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 39. Trichilia spectabilis, Forst. Prodr. n. 188; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 306.

North Island: Abundant from the North Cape southwards. South Island: Marlborough, D'Urville Island. Ascends to 1500 ft. Kohekohe. May–July.

Timber suitable for inlaying and furniture; leaves bitter and tonic.