Information

Deciduous trees, to 12–15 m tall; bark greyish; glabrous except for the interior of the domatia and calyx, and the androgynophore and seeds. Leaves cordate to very widely cordate-ovate, 13–19 cm long, 12.5–18.5 cm wide, apex acuminate (obtuse fide F.Z.), margin entire and revolute, base cordate to widely cordate, glabrous above and below but with pocket-like domatia in the axils of the 1°, 2°, and 3° veins below, the interior of the domatia with simple hairs; palmately 7–9-nerved from the base; petioles terete, 14–32 cm long. Inflorescences axillary racemes (as evidenced by petiole scars), 4.5–7 cm long, borne near the ends of branches; pedicels 3–4 mm long, articulated near the apex to form a 2 mm long stipe at the base of the calyx; bracts fugacious, not seen. Flowering when leafless. Calyx elongate-campanulate, slightly curved, 2–2.2 cm long, 0.6–0.8 cm wide, dilated below, base truncate, subtended by a 1–2 mm long stipe, orange to red or salmon-coloured, glabrous externally, villous at the base internally, becoming finely pubescent above and tomentellous along the margins of the calyx lobes, lobes acute, 3–4 mm long, 2–2.5 mm wide, erect or weakly reflexed. Androgynophore 1.5–2.5 cm long, villous at the base, finely pubescent above and glabrous on the exserted portion; exserted 5–10 mm beyond the calyx lobes; anthers 15, linear, in 2 rows congested in a globose head. Ovary of 5 coherent carpels, ovoid; 1–2 ovules per carpel; stigma lobes recurved, subsessile. Fruit apocarpous, carpels borne on the elongated androgynophore, elliptic to lanceolate, (3.5–)5.2–5.5 cm long, (1.7–)2.1–2.3 cm wide, purplish, membranaceous, glabrous, inner walls of follicles sparsely pubescent with simple hairs near the attachment of the seed, the basal stipe ± 2 mm long, persisting; seeds 1(–2?), ovoid, ± 1 cm in diameter, hispid, with simple, hyaline hairs. Fig. 9, p. 55.