Syzygium oligomyrum Diels, Bot. Jahrb. 60 (1926)
Latin for 'little sap'.
Synonyms
Eugenia ochneocarpa Merr.
Syzygium ochneocarpum (Merr.) Merr. & Perry
Diagnostics
Upper canopy tree up to 41 m tall and 87(-100) cm dbh. Stipules absent. Leaves
opposite, simple, penni-veined, venation inconspicuous, secondary veins placed
close together, glabrous. Flowers ca. 11 mm diameter, white, with protruding
stamens, flowers placed in panicles. Fruits ca. 18 mm long, green-whitish,
fleshy berries.
Description
Canopy tree, to 35(-41) m tall, 1 m diameter, with low buttresses; bark dark red-brown and
grey mottled, becoming cracked and eventually thickly flaky. Twig 2-3 mm diameter apically,
elliptic to round, pale red- to buff-brown, smooth. Leaf blade c.11 x 5(7-20 x 2.5-10) cm,
elliptic-oblong, thickly leathery, drying distinct dull golden-brown beneath (rust-brown
slightly satiny in juveniles), dull greenish grey above; base wedge-shaped, tapering into
c.1 cm long c.2 mm diameter stalk, apex with to 1cm broadly tapering acumen, acute or sometimes
obtuse; obscurely pitted above, more or less obscurely black dotted beneath; venation obscure
on both surfaces (veins slender, raised or narrowly furrowed above, raised beneath, c.25 pairs,
in juveniles), subequal, spreading, intramarginal vein close to margin, hardly looped.
Panicle to 3-terminal or 1-axillary, to 6 cm long, 2 mm stout at base, singly branched.
Flower bud c.10 x 4 mm, clove-shaped, the domed corolla set above an even sepal rim with 5
vestigial broad lobes, receptacle tapering into an equal or somewhat longer more or less
warty pseudostalk, drying wrinkled; stamens many. Fruit to 18 x 12 mm, pear-shaped, smooth,
drying dull pale, with c.5 mm diameter short even calyx rim. [from Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak]
Ecology
In undisturbed to slightly disturbed (open) mixed dipterocarp, keranga and
sub-montane forests up to 1300 m altitude. Usually on hillsides and ridges with
sandy to clay soils, also on ultramafic.
Distribution
Borneo.
Local names
Borneo: Jambu, Meroa, Obah, Ubah.
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