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

Aquilaria filaria (Oken.) Merr.

Journal of the Arnold Arboretum Vol. 31: 283 (1950)

Other Literature: Ding Hou, Flora Malesiana, Series 1 11-12 (1960)

Family: Thymelaeaceae
Dicotyledon

Timber Group: Non-timber species

Field Characters: Small sub-canopy tree (up to 20 m high); Bole cylindrical; straight; buttresses buttresses absent; spines spines absent; aerial roots aerial roots absent; stilt roots stilt roots absent; Bark grey or brown; blaze consisting of one layer; strongly aromatic; pleasant; outer blaze white or pale yellow, fibrous; inner blaze white or pale yellow, fibrous; terminal buds not enclosed by leaves.

Indumentum: Complex hairs absent; stinging hairs absent; mature twig indumentum (hairs) present when young or soon absent, hairs sparse.

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 rarely broadest above middle, broadest below middle, or equally broad throughout much of length, 10.0-20.0 cm, 3.0-5.5 cm; symmetric, entire, not dissected or lobed, acuminate (shortly), venation pinnate, secondary veins open, prominent, intramarginal veins absent; leaves lower surface pale green, green, or grey, upper surface dark green (glossy), indumentum (hairs) absent or present (with scattered hairs on lower surface), indumentum (hairs) sparse; absent; domatia absent; stipules absent.

Flowers: Inflorescence axillary, flowers arising from a single point, cones absent; flowers bisexual, stalked, flowers with many planes of symmetry (perianth splitting on one side), 5.0-7.0 mm long, diameter small (up to10 mm diam.) (c. 5 mm diam.); perianth present, with distinct sepals and petals whorls (inner perianth minute, usually over-looked, and twice number of sepal lobes) or with all sepals and/or petals (hence tepals) similar (by misinterpretation), inner perianth white; 5, some or partly joined; stamens 10, short present, free of each other, joined to the perianth; ovary superior, carpels joined (when more than one), locules 2; styles solitary, 1.

Fruits: Infrutescence arising from single point, fruit 12.0-15.0 mm long, yellow, not spiny, non-fleshy, simple, dehiscent, capsule; seeds 1-(violet-blue coloured)-2, much more than 10 mm long (60-75 mm long), not winged, broad (as wide as long), seed more than 10 mm diam. (60-75 mm long).

Distribution: West Sepik.

Botanical records in PNGplants database Map details

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Notes: Notes Previously only known from West Papua (Indonesia).