Syzygium elliptilimbum (Merr.) Merr. & Perry, Mem. Amer. Ac. 18 (1939)
Latin for 'elliptic leaves'.
Synonyms
Eugenia elliptilimba Merr.
Eugenia suluensis Merr.
Diagnostics
Sub-canopy tree up to 26(-40) m tall and 55(-100) cm dbh. Stipules absent. Leaves
opposite, simple, penni-veined with prominent venation, glabrous. Flowers ca. 7
mm diameter, white-yellowish, protruding stamens, flowers in panicles. Fruits
ca. 14 mm diameter, green, smooth to strongly ridged, fleshy berries.
Description
Canopy tree to 40 m tall, 1 m diameter, with low thin buttresses, smooth mauve-brown bark, and
red-brown inner bark. Parts hairless. Twig stout, elliptic, smooth or cracked near nodes, dark
red-brown. Leaf blade c.15 x 6.5(13-25 x 3.5-10) cm, elliptic, thinly leathery to papery and
wavy on drying, drying more or less glistening on both surfaces, purplish brown above, duller rich
red-brown beneath; base broadly wedge shaped or rounded, hardly tapering at the c.9 mm stout stalk;
acumen c.1 cm, tapering; pits above invisible, obscurely but densely pimpled on both surfaces;
veins well spaced with somewhat unequal intermediates, main veins 12-16 pairs, slender but
distinctly raised on both surfaces somewhat more so beneath as also tertiaries, unfurrowed,
spreading, irregularly placed with less prominent sometimes branched intermediates; intramarginal
vein 2, the main 3-5 mm within margin, not prominently looped. Panicle to 3-terminal or subterminal
axillary, to 13 cm long, 3 mm diameter, slender, round, much branched. Flower white, bud
c.4 x 2(-6 x 3) mm, small, slender, obconical, tapering into slender pseudostalk, calyx sepal
lobes at first small, hemispherical,falling at anthesis with their bases appressed in a rim round
the corolla dome before anthesis; stamens many, style extending c.4 mm, slender. Fruit c.12 mm
diameter, round, smooth with c.7 mm diameter sepal rim of short acute sepals.
Ecology
In undisturbed mixed dipterocarp, swamp and sub-montane forests up to 1400 m
altitude. Usually on hillsides and ridges, but also common along rivers and
streams. On sandy to clay soils.
Distribution
Borneo.
Local names
Borneo: Obah, Ubah.
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