English Lao
Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution
| Diagnostic characters : | Evergreen trees. Flowers unisexual on the same plant, male in spike-like catkins, female, sessile, densely clustered on lateral or sub terminal spikes, Fruit an acorn, cupule covering 1/3 to 2/3 of the acorn, depressed at the top. |
| Habit : | Evergreen tree 10 to 15 m high. Branches ascending to main trunk. |
| Trunk & bark : | Trunk straight. Bark fissured, lenticellate, brown, inner bark brown, wood whitish. . |
| Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Twigs terete, slightly fissured and lenticellate, light brown, glabrous. |
| Exudates : | Exudate absent. |
| Leaves : | Leaves simple alternate and spiral, 7-15 by 2-4 cm, lanceolate or elliptic-oblong, apex acuminate, base acute, slightly asymmetric, margin entire, blade leathery to papery, glabrous on both sides, reddish when young. Midrib flat above, primary vein single, secondary veins oblique to the midrib, widely parallel, tertiary veins oblique. Petiole glabrous. Stipules present, falling off early. |
| Inflorescences or flowers : | Flowers unisexual, axillary, small, light yellowish green grouped in loose catkins, rachis tomentose with short hairs. Pedicel less than 0.5 cm long. |
| Fruits : | Fruit is an acorn with cupule enclosing 1/3 to 2/3 of nut, becoming woody at base. The top of the fruit (nut) is depressed globose, 1.5-2.2 cm by 2-2.6 cm. |
| Seeds : | Seed 1. |