Syzygium hirtum (Korth.) Merr. & Perry, Mem. Amer. Ac. 18 (1939)
Latin for 'hairy'.
Synonyms
Eugenia hirta (Korth.) Burgess
Eugenia rufo-tomentosa (Gibbs) Merr.
Jambosa hirta Korth.
Jambosa rufo-tomentosa Gibbs
Syzygium rufo-tomentosum (Gibbs) Masamune
Diagnosis
Understorey tree up to 12 m tall and 49 cm dbh. Stipules absent. Leaves
opposite, simple, penni-veined, venation conspicuous, hairy below. Flowers ca.
40 mm diameter, white, with protruding stamens, flowers in panicles. Fruits ca.
21 mm diameter, green-reddish-purplish, fleshy berries.
Description
Small smooth-barked subcanopy tree to 20(-49) cm diameter, without stilt roots. Exposed living
parts more or less coarsely dark red-brown hairy, becoming sparse in fruit, fugaceous or glabrous
above, sparse confined to venation beneath. Twig c.3 mm diameter, more or less coarsely dark
red-brown hairy, elliptic, with long straight internodes. Leaf blade c.22 x 7(12-24 x 2-14) cm,
narrowly oblong or sometimes lanceolate, distinctly though not densely more or less coarsely
hairy on venation beneath and stalk, thin, drying dull purple-brown and densely pitted above,
dark rust-brown with blackish veins but without dots beneath; base heart-shaped to rounded ending
abruptly at a c.3 mm long short stout stalk; acumen prominent, slender; veins unequal, main veins
c.25 pairs, slender, distinctly raised beneath, shallowly furrowed above, somewhat ascending;
tertiaries distinctly raised beneath, ladder like and perpendicular to midrib; intramarginal
vein 1(2) pairs, 2-3 mm within margin, hardly looped. Panicle to 3-terminal, to 8 cm long,
2-branched, round. Flower with to 3 mm strip-like papery fugaceous bracteoles; bud to 15 x 8 mm,
torch-shaped tapering without a waist to base, with 4-5, to 4 x 5 mm broadly ovate acute to
subacuminate appressed sepal lobes, spreading at flowering; stamens many, white, style to 3 cm
long, slender, whip-like. Fruit c.8 mm diameter, spherical with prominent crown of more or less
persistent somewhat reflexed sepals, ripening green with red flush. [from Tree Flora of Sabah and
Sarawak]
Ecology
In undisturbed to slightly disturbed (open) mixed dipterocarp to sub-montane
forests up to 1600 m altitude. Usually along rivers and streams or on alluvial
sites. On clay to sandy soils, also on or near limestone and on ultramafic.
Distribution
Sumatra, Borneo.
Local names
Borneo: Menguvah, Obah, Ubah.
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