Author: Thouars
Morphological description (Intsia bijuga FT31 )
Trees often with buttresses. Stipules intrapetiolar, connate.
Leaves paripinnate; petiolules twisted. Leaflets chartaceous to subcoriaceous, usually with 1 or 2 small crateriform glands at the basal part on lower surface.
Inflorescences terminal or axillary, simply racemose, often fasciculate, or paniculate; bracts caducous.
Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic. Hypanthium cupular, narrowly infundibuliform or cylindric. Calyx lobes 4. Petals only 1 fully developed, flabellate, lower half narrowed into a claw, the others rudimentary or absent. Disk absent. Stamens 3 or very rarely 4 fertile; staminodes 4-7; filaments and staminodes connate at the base; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary stipitate (stipe adnate to the hypanthium except the apical part), puberulous; style slender; stigma small, capitellate.
Pods oblong, rarely obcordate, straight or falcate, flattened, glabrous, dehiscent, 2-valved (valves leathery or slightly woody), often 3(or more)-seeded (Intsia palembainca pods 139530 ).
Seeds ovoid, oblong, discoid, or sublenticular, flattened, not arillate, scurfy, exalbuminous.
Distribution
Species 2 or more, from Madagascar, islands of the Indian Ocean, tropical Asia, through Malesia to N Australia, Melanesia and Micronesia. In Malesia two species.
Uses
The timber (international trade name Merbau ) has a wide range of uses both indoors and outdoors, the main source of merbau timber being Intsia palembanica . See Vink (1994: 322-232) and Johns et al. (1993: 264-270).