Barry Conn (NSW) & Kipiro Damas (LAE).
Guide to trees of Papua New Guinea
Copyright held by the authors, National Herbarium of New South Wales, and Papua New Guinea National Herbarium

Anisoptera thurifera Blume

Museum Botanicum Lugduno-Batavum sive stirpium Exoticarum, Novarum vel Minus Cognitarum ex Vivis aut Siccis Brevis Expositio et Descriptio Vol. 2: Fig. 6.

Family: Dipterocarpaceae
Dicotyledon

Timber Group: Major exportable hardwood Tradename: Anisoptera

Field Characters: Emergent tree (up to 50 m high) or Large canopy tree; Bole cylindrical (slightly spurred); straight; buttresses buttresses present or sometimes buttresses absent; spines spines absent; aerial roots aerial roots absent; stilt roots stilt roots absent; Bark white, pale green, or grey, rough, scaly or flaky or pustular, lenticels elongated vertically; Subrhytidome (under-bark) green; less than 25 mm thick (c. 20 mm thick), 10.0-12.0; bark blaze with two layers; strongly aromatic; unpleasant; outer blaze greenish white, markings absent, fibrous and granular without splinters; inner blaze orange or pale brown, markings absent, fibrous and granular without splinters; bark exudate (sap) present, colourless, not readily flowing (spotty), colour not changing on exposure to air, not sticky; terminal buds not enclosed by leaves.

Indumentum: Complex hairs absent; stinging hairs absent; mature twig indumentum (hairs) absent.

Leaves: Leaves spaced along branches, spiral (leaves occurring singly at a node and arranged spirally up the branchlet), simple (a leaf composed of a single blade); petiole present, not winged, attached to base of leaf blade, not swollen; leaves broadest at or near middle and broadest below middle, 9.0-14.0 cm, 4.0-7.0 cm; symmetric, entire, not dissected or lobed, slightly acuminate, venation pinnate, secondary veins open, prominent, intramarginal veins absent; leaves lower surface green or pale brown, upper surface dark green (glossy), indumentum (hairs) absent; absent; domatia absent; stipules absent.

Flowers: Inflorescence terminal and axillary, flowers on a branched axis, cones absent; flowers bisexual, stalked, flowers with many planes of symmetry, 6.0-10.0 mm long, diameter small (up to10 mm diam.) (4-8 mm diam.); perianth present, with distinct sepals and petals whorls, inner perianth white; 5 (twisted), some or partly joined; stamens 50 (c. with hair-like apices), present, free of each other, free of the perianth; ovary superior, carpels joined (when more than one), locules 1; styles solitary, 1.

Fruits: Infrutescence arranged on branched axis, fruit 10.0 (c. plus wings 90-140 mm long) mm long, pale brown, not spiny, non-fleshy, simple, indehiscent, nut (with 2 sepal-formed long wings); seeds 1, about 10 mm long, not winged, broad (as wide as long), seed 1-10 mm diam.

Distribution: Madang, Morobe, Southern Highlands, Western, Gulf, Central, Northern & Milne Bay.

Botanical records in PNGplants database Map details

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