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Flowers. Copyright CSIRO

Flower. Copyright Barry Jago

Leaves and Flowers. Copyright CSIRO

Dehisced fruit and arillous seeds. Copyright W. T. Cooper

Cotyledon stage, hypogeal germination. Copyright CSIRO

10th leaf stage. Copyright CSIRO

Scale bar 10mm. Copyright CSIRO

Dysoxylum oppositifolium

Family

Meliaceae

Botanical Name

Dysoxylum oppositifolium F.Muell.

Mueller, F.J.H. von (1865) Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 5: 177. Type: ?.

Synonyms

Alliaria oppositifolia (F.Muell.) Kuntze, Revisio Generum Plantarum 1: 109(1891), Type: ?. Alliaria schulzii (C.DC.) Kuntze, Revisio Generum Plantarum 1: 109(1891), Type: ?. Dysoxylum schulzii C.DC., Monographiae Phanerogamarum 1: 502(1878), Type: In Port Darwin (Schulz, n. 573 in herb. Kew et Berol.). Dysoxylum acutangulum Miq., Flora Indiae Batavae Suppl.: 503(1861), Type: Sumatra.

Common name

Mahogany, Pink; Pink Mahogany

Stem

Narrow orange-yellow brittle stripes in the blaze. Lenticels often quite large, 10 mm diam. Bark often coarsely flaky.

Leaves

Midrib raised on the upper surface of the leaflet blade. Leaflet blades about 8-17 x 3.5-5.5 cm. Compound leaf petiole rather sharply angular from the base to the point of attachment of the first pair of leaflets. Domatia (if present) are tufts of hairs around a glandular depression. Terminal buds shaped like a lance head.

Flowers

Calyx cup-shaped, lobes very small and inconspicuous. Outer surface of the corolla clothed in pale, +/- prostrate hairs. Petals about 7 mm long. Stamens eight. Disk surrounds the ovary and resembles a staminal tube. Ovary pubescent.

Fruit

Fruits +/- globular, often 4-lobed in transverse section, about 20-30 mm long, outer surface glabrous, or sparsely tomentellous. Sarcotesta orange or yellow except for a brown or black patch. Cotyledons cream but brown on the periphery.

Seedlings

First pair of leaves compound with two leaflets. At the tenth leaf stage: leaflet blades elliptic, apex acuminate, glabrous on the upper surface; petiole and rhachis of compound leaf clothed in short, erect hairs.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in NT, CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from sea level to 1100 m. Grows in well developed rain forest on a variety of sites but tends to be more abundant in drier, more seasonal rain forest. Also occurs in Malesia and the Solomon Islands.