Author: Van Steenis
Morphological description (Uittienia modesta compl FM52 )
Trees .
Leaves 1-foliolate, petiolate, thickened at basal end; petiolules very short, wrinkled. Stipules minute, linear, caducous.
Inflorescences axillary, fascicled short thyrses.
Flower : Hypanthium obscure or absent. Calyx deeply lobed, lobes 5, narrowly imbricate, deciduous. Corolla lobes 5. Disk distinct, cushion-like, hairy. Stamens 5(-7), all fertile, rarely 1-3 smaller; filaments free; anthers basifixed, uniform, ovoid, dehiscing lengthwise. Ovary stipitate, terete or slightly ellipsoid, slightly hairy, 1-ovuled; style filiform, slightly hairy; stigma obscure.
Pods indehiscent, globose, woody, with a softish pulp around the seed.
Seed single subglobular; endosperm almost filling the seed; embryo minute, conical.
Distribution
Only 1 species known, in West Malesia .
Note
The present genus was reduced to Genus Dialium as a subgenus by Steyaert (1953: 355). Rojo (1982: pp. 99, 248), after a comprehensive study of the genus Dialium , excluded the genus Uittienia from that genus and reinstated it as a monotypic genus within the same subtribe (i. e. Tribe Cassieae subtribe Dialiinae Irwin & Barneby).
According to Rojo (1982, p. 100) the fruit of Dialium "has a thin crustaceous exocarp which is usually hairy and easily crushed or sometimes detached from the adjacent mesocarp", while the fruit of Uittienia "does not have a crustaceous exocarp but instead has a thick (c. 4-5 mm) and hard pericarp which when dry is uncrushable by hardest press between two hands". See Rojo's figures 2.18b and 3.1f/g.