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

Octomeles sumatrana Miq.

Flora Indiae Batavae, .Supplementum Primum. Prodromus Florae Sumatranae 336 (1861)

Other Literature: J.R. Croft, Handbooks of the Flora of Papua New Guinea 117 (1978) Fig. 52-61.

Family: Tetramelaceae
Dicotyledon

Timber Group: Major exportable hardwood Tradename: Erima

Field Characters: Emergent tree (up to 60 m high) or Large canopy tree; Bole cylindrical (80-100 cm diam.) or markedly fluted (sometimes above buttresses); straight (bole 12-25 m long, rarely to as long as 45 m); buttresses buttresses present (buttresses up to 3 m high); spines spines absent; aerial roots aerial roots absent; stilt roots stilt roots absent; Bark grey or rarely brown, rough, scaly or flaky, fissured, or pustular (often (often relatively indistinct), lenticels elongated vertically; Subrhytidome (under-bark) green; less than 25 mm thick or mostly more than 25 mm thick, (7.0-) 15.0-30.0; bark blaze with two layers; strongly aromatic; unpleasant; outer blaze rarely yellow, pale pink, or brown, markings absent, fibrous or slightly granular with splinters; inner blaze yellow (rapidly turning brown when cut), with stripes, fibrous or granular with splinters; bark exudate (sap) present, colourless, not readily flowing (spotty), colour changing on exposure to air, to pale brown, 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 (15-30 cm), not winged, attached to base of leaf blade, not swollen; leaves broadest below middle, 12.0-30.0 cm, 6.0-23.0 cm; symmetric, entire, not dissected or lobed, rarely acute or acuminate, venation distally pinnate or at base palmate, secondary veins open, prominent, intramarginal veins absent; leaves lower surface pale green or green, upper surface dark green, indumentum (hairs) absent; absent; domatia present, scattered along midrib; stipules absent.

Flowers: Inflorescence axillary, flowers on an unbranched axis, cones absent; flowers unisexual, unisexual with male and female flowers on different plants, not stalked, flowers with many planes of symmetry, 2.0-5.0 mm long, diameter small (up to10 mm diam.); perianth present, with distinct sepals and petals whorls (male flowers) or with all sepals and/or petals (hence tepals) similar (female flowers with petals absent), inner perianth white (cream-coloured); 5-8, some or partly joined; stamens 5-(absent in female flowers)-8, present, free of each other, joined to the perianth; ovary inferior, carpels joined (when more than one), locules 1; styles free, 5-8.

Fruits: Infrutescence arranged on unbranched axis, fruit 12.0 (c.) mm long, pale brown, not spiny, non-fleshy, simple, dehiscent, capsule; seeds 100, barely visible (to 1 mm long), not winged, broad (as wide as long), seed less than 1 mm diam.

Distribution: West Sepik, East Sepik, Madang, Morobe, Southern Highlands, Western, Gulf, Central, Northern, Milne Bay, Papuan Islands, New Britain, New Ireland & Bougainville.

Botanical records in PNGplants database Map details

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Notes: Notes The genus Octomeles was previously classified in the family Datiscaceae.