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

Ailanthus integrifolia Lam subsp. integrifolia

Flora Malesiana, Series 1 Vol. 6: 218 (1962)

Family: Simaroubaceae
Dicotyledon

Timber Group: Minor hardwood

Field Characters: Emergent tree (up to 60 m high) or Large canopy tree; Bole cylindrical (up to 120 cm diam.); straight (bole up to 40 m long); buttresses buttresses absent; spines spines absent; aerial roots aerial roots absent; stilt roots stilt roots absent; Bark white, grey, or brown (pale sometimes), rough or rarely smooth, pustular, lenticels rounded/swelling or lenticels irregular; Subrhytidome (under-bark) brown; less than 25 mm thick, 12.0-14.0; bark blaze consisting of one layer; strongly aromatic; unpleasant; outer blaze orange or pale brown, speckled, rarely fibrous or granular without splinters; inner blaze orange or pale brown, speckled, rarely fibrous or 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 present; mature twig indumentum (hairs) absent.

Leaves: Leaves spaced along branches, spiral (leaves occurring singly at a node and arranged spirally up the branchlet), compound (a leaf made up from two or more leaflets); petiole present, not winged, attached to base of leaf blade, not swollen; leaves pinnate (unbranched with more than three leaflets); petiolule not swollen; rachis present, present, absent; leaves without a terminal leaflet (the number of leaflets even - paripinnate), broadest below middle, 8.5-13.0 cm, 5.0-6.0 cm, leaflets opposite, asymmetric (or slightly so); venation pinnate, secondary veins open, prominent, intramarginal veins absent; leaves lower surface pale green, upper surface green, indumentum (hairs) absent; present (large black glands on lower surface mostly near base); domatia absent; stipules absent.

Flowers: Inflorescence terminal, flowers on a branched axis, cones absent; flowers unisexual, unisexual with male and female flowers on different plants, stalked, flowers with many planes of symmetry, 5.0-6.0 mm long, diameter small (up to10 mm diam.) (c. 5 mm diam.); perianth present, with distinct sepals and petals whorls, inner perianth pale yellow or green; 5, some or partly joined; stamens 10, present, free of each other, joined to the perianth; ovary superior (female flowers), carpels separate (when more than one), locules 5; styles free, 5 (1 per carpel).

Fruits: Infrutescence arranged on branched axis, fruit 110.0-220.0 mm long, brown, not spiny, non-fleshy, simple (by misinterpretation) or aggregate, indehiscent, samara; seeds 1-(by misinterpretation)-5, much more than 10 mm long (seed c. 15 mm long, excluding wing) or 100 mm long or much longer (110-220 mm long when wing included), winged (usually at least 50 mm long), broad (as wide as long) (flattened), seed more than 10 mm diam. (10-15 mm diam.).

Distribution: West Sepik, East Sepik, Madang, Morobe, Northern, New Britain, New Ireland & Bougainville.

Botanical records in PNGplants database Map details

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