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Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution
Diagnostic characters : | Small evergreen trees, stem with red sap. Leaves imparipinnate, alternate, leaflets opposite, apex caudate. Flowers white, pea-like, top petal curved backwards. Fruit a flat pod. |
Habit : | Evergreen treelet c. 5 m. tall; c. 10 cm.in diameter, bark brownish-white, flaky. |
Trunk & bark : | Trunk with gray lenticels, outer bark c. 1 cm. thick, blackish-brown, inner bark c. 0.5 cm. thick, yellow. |
Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Branches glabrous, terete, brownish when dry, lenticellate. |
Exudates : | Red sap. |
Leaves : | Leaves compound, imparipinnate, alternate, crowded at the apex of branchelets, rachis up to 10 cm. long, leaflets 5-9, opposite to subopposite, oblong to elliptic, apex caudate, base acute, margin entire, young leaves light green, blade coriaceous and glabrous on both surface, pale on the lower surface. Midrib grooved above, prominent below. Primary vein single, secondary veins obtuse, about 5-7 pairs, tertiary indistinctly reticulate. Petiole small about 1 cm. long. |
Inflorescences or flowers : | Inflorescence a racemose-panicle, axillary and terminal, glabrous, up to 20-30 cm. long. Flowers white, small and short bracts, glabrous, pedicel about 4 mm. long, calyx dark brown, small. Petals glabrous, white. |
Fruits : | Fruit is a flat pod, 2-3 X 10 cm in length, thick walled, glabrous, brown on the outer surface then dark brown, dehiscent. |
Seeds : | Few flattened rounded seeds. |