藍子木

植物簡介

It is a tree, up to 30 m tall, with single or multiple trunks. Bark peels irregularly revealing new barks in shades of orange-brown. Leaves are papery (chartaceous), elliptic to obovate (3 – 17 cm long and 1.8 – 8.3 cm wide) and in alternate arrangement. Leaves are green on the upper surface and pale green on the lower surface. There are 6 – 12 pairs of secondary veins which are visible on both sides of the leaves. They form faint loops towards the leaf margin. Leaf tip is acute to apiculate while leaf base is cuneate to rounded. Petiole is short (0.35 – 1.1 cm long) and is channelled on the upper surface. Stipules are triangular to lanceolate (0.2 to 0.45 cm long), falling off early and leaving a semi-circular stipular scar on the twig. Leaves dry characteristically dark brown. Flowers are dioecious where the male and female flowers are borne on separate individuals. Male flowers are borne in clusters of 2 – 28 on flower stalks (up to 7 mm long).  Each male flower comprises of a large flattened disc, stamens, filament (0.8 – 1.5 mm long) and oblong anthers. Female flowers are borne in clusters of 1 – 7, on flower stalks (up to 2.2cm long). Each female flower comprises of a disc (1.8 – 2.6 mm) and stigma (1.5 – 2 mm long) which is bifid at tip. Fruit is an almost globular (0.9 – 1.2 cm diameter) capsule produced singly or in pairs. The fruit turns from green to brown and split into 3 parts as it matures. Seed is triangular (3.5 – 5 mm long and 2.8 – 4 mm wide) with a thin translucent bluish purple sarcotesta.