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

Duabanga moluccana Blume

Museum Botanicum Lugduno-Batavum sive stirpium Exoticarum, Novarum vel Minus Cognitarum ex Vivis aut Siccis Brevis Expositio et Descriptio Vol. 1: 109

Other Literature: J.J. Havel, Forest Botany, Part 2 Botanical Taxonomy 222 (1975) Fig. 62.

Family: Lythraceae
Dicotyledon

Timber Group: Occasional timber species

Field Characters: Large canopy tree (up to 40 m high); Bole markedly fluted (often up to c. 100 cm diam.); often crooked or straight (bole up to 1.5 m long); buttresses buttresses present; spines spines absent; aerial roots aerial roots absent; stilt roots stilt roots absent; Bark red or brown, rough, fissured, peeling, or pustular, lenticels rounded/swelling; Subrhytidome (under-bark) pale brown; less than 25 mm thick, 20.0; bark blaze with two layers; strongly aromatic; pleasant; outer blaze brown or mixed colours (dark and light brown), markings absent; inner blaze brown (pale (darkening rapidly), markings absent; 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, opposite (in pairs, opposite one another on the branchlet) (arranged in one plane), simple (a leaf composed of a single blade); petiole present, not winged, attached to base of leaf blade, not swollen; leaves broadest below middle, 12.5-20.0 cm, 4.0-7.5 cm; symmetric, entire, not dissected or lobed, sub acute or acuminate, venation pinnate, secondary veins open, prominent, intramarginal veins present; leaves lower surface pale green, upper surface dark green (glossy), indumentum (hairs) absent; absent; domatia absent; stipules absent.

Flowers: Inflorescence terminal (few-flowered inflorescences), flowers on a branched axis, cones absent; flowers bisexual, stalked, flowers with many planes of symmetry, 20.0-30.0 mm long, diameter small (up to10 mm diam.) (8-12 mm diam.); perianth present, with distinct sepals and petals whorls, inner perianth white or pink; 4, some or partly joined (at base); stamens 16 (c.), present, free of each other, free of the perianth; ovary superior, carpels joined (when more than one), locules 4; styles solitary, 1.

Fruits: Infrutescence arranged on branched axis, fruit 20.0 (c.) mm long, brown or black, not spiny, fleshy (leathery), simple, dehiscent, capsule; seeds 100, to about 5 mm long (4-6 mm long), not winged, narrow (longer than wide), seed 1-10 mm diam. (c. 1 mm diam.).

Distribution: West Sepik, Madang, Morobe, Western Highlands & Western.

Botanical records in PNGplants database Map details

Notes: Notes This genus is sometimes included in the Family Sonneratiaceae.