Author: Scheffer
Morphological description
Trees ; growth flush-wise, flushes developing from large buds. Buds covered by 2-ranked, brown, caducous budscales with lengthwise veins; new leaves developing in bright white or pink tassels (Manil browneoides flush 428830 ). Stipules present in the buds, very tender, caducous immediately after the unfolding of the bud, leaving hardly any scar.
Leaves simply pinnate, (1- or)2-15-jugate. Leaflets opposite, asymmetric and the midrib usually excentric and close to the upper margin; mostly glabrous.
Inflorescences axillary, racemose, sessile, globular, contracted, dense, the rachis usually sturdy (Manil lenticellata overv 139536 ); bracts scale-like, veined lengthwise, lower ones broad reniform, gradually becoming ovate to lanceolate from halfway through the raceme, mostly persistent, appressed-hairy, glabrescent or not; bracteoles caducous, either linear, flat, small (not exceeding 5 mm), or larger (5-20 mm), obovate to spathulate, folded lengthwise with an apical tuft of hairs and usually a line of hairs along the dorsal side.
Flowers bisexual. Hypanthium cupular and splitting under the developing fruit, or funnel-shaped (rarely tubular) enveloping the ovary and then splitting lengthwise as the fruit ripens. Sepals 4 (or 5), imbricate, reflexed at anthesis. Petals 5 (very occasionally some or all of them absent in Maniltoa brassii ), narrow, free, glabrous. Disk absent. Stamens 15-80, filaments often connate at base, sometimes with a few hairs; anthers medi-dorsifix, lengthwise introrsely dehiscent, 1-2 mm long, very often separate below the insertion of the filament, mostly apiculate at apex. Ovary 1 (or 2)-ovuled, sessile or stipitate, the stipe usually central.
Pods woody, ovoid, globose, sometimes oblong, or somewhat kidney-shaped, often comprssed, indehiscent.
Seeds globular; cotyledons smooth, semi-globular.
Seedlings: see Maniltoa seedl.stadia 139538-42
Distribution
A genus of 20-25 species, distributed in India, SE Asia, Malesia, Melanesia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands (Carolines, Solomons, Fiji and Tonga). About 13 species occurring in Malesia (most of them in New Guinea, some also in Celebes and Moluccas), not including the species only found in the Solomon Islands.
Habitat
Primary forests at low altitudes, up to 500(-1300) m, often in swampy areas, occasionally in the mangrove (Maniltoa brassii ).
Uses
Plants of this genus are used as ornamentals because of their beautifully coloured young leaves and flowers.
Note
The genus Maniltoa is very closely allied to Genus Cynometra and was treated as a section of the latter genus by Taubert [in Engl. & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam. III, 3 (1892) 129]. Some years later, however, Harms [in Engl. & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam. III, 3 (1897) 193] maintained it as a distinct genus, and since that treatment, Maniltoa has been generally accepted. Because the two genera had never been revised as a whole and there had been confusion concerning their generic limits, Knaap-van Meeuwen (1970: 31) made a thorough study of the genera, reviewing the history of their classification. She redelimited the two genera and listed the main differences especially in floral characters in the keys to the genera in her revision. Since then her delimitation of the two genera has generally been followed by, for example, Verdcourt, 1979 (p. 57), Cowan and Polhill, 1981 (p. 124), Smith, 1985 (pp. 122-132), and also in the present Flora.
Incompletely known taxa
There are sterile or incomplete Malesian specimens of Maniltoa , mainly from New Guinea, in many herbaria. Verdcourt, 1979 (pp. 75-77) made a comprehensive study of the genus and expressed that `it must be emphasized that only complete material is of any value in this genus'. He has recorded several undescribed taxa of this genus from New Guinea, under the species A to H, hoping fertile or complete collections will be available in the near future.