Author: Verdcourt
Morphological description
Tree 7.5-10 m high, bark thin smooth slightly pustular. 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. Stipules present in the buds, very tender, caducous immediately after the unfolding of the bud, leaving hardly any scar.
Leaves paripinnate, 2- or 3-jugate, rachis 1-4.5 cm; petiole 0.3-1.5 cm, glabrous or pubescent. Leaflets more or less sessile, opposite, obliquely elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, 2.3-7.2 by 0.8-2.4 cm, obtusely acuminate at the apex, oblique and more or less auriculate at the base, glabrous or minutely puberulous; midrib very excentric, 1.8-5 mm from the upper margin.
Flowers in subglobose heads up to 3.5 cm long, 4.5 cm wide; buds and bracts pale rose, the latter elliptic-lanceolate, up to 2.3 by 1 cm, rusty hairy outside. Hypanthium 5-6 mm deep, glabrous. Sepals 3, 8-9 mm long. Petals white, 9 by 1.5 mm. Disk absent. Stamens 16-20; filaments white, 1.5-2.5 cm. Ovary completely included in the hypanthium, sessile, glabrous.
Fruits ovoid, 2.6 by 1.3 cm, shortly acuminate at the apex; stipe absent.
Distribution
Malesia: Papua New Guinea (Gulf and Central Provinces).
Habitat & Ecology
Alluvial forest margins, streamside forest, 60-300 m altitude. Flowering in January, and March.