Agrostistachys borneensis Becc.

Habit: Tree

Dioecious evergreen trees to 15 m; bark 8-10 mm thick, blackish-grey mottled with white, smooth, brittle; blaze reddish-brown; branchlets stout, marked with the scales of petioles and stipules; exudation white, milky; young parts glabrous. Leaves simple, alternate, clustered at the tips of branchlets, stipulate; stipules lateral, short, broad, acute, cauducous; petiole 5-10 mm long, stout, glabrous; lamina 10-25 x 5-7.5 cm, oblanceolate or obovate-spathulate, base long attenuate, apex acuminate, margin entire, recurved, glabrous, coriaceous; lateral nerves 10-18 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae very obscure. Flowers unisexual, yellow; male flowers: in axillary lax spiciform racemes, much shorter than the leaves, few flowers per bract; bracts broadly ovate, ciliate; tepals 8-10, biseriate, outer tepals connate, cupular, splitting into 2-5 valvate segments; inner tepals petalloid, alternating with outer, ovate, obtuse fleshy, fimbriate, shorter than outer petals; disc glands 5, large, alternating with inner tepals; stamens 10, exserted; outer 5 alternating with disc; inner 5 shortly connate, around pistillode; anthers versatile, the cells pendulous from the thickened connective; pistillode 2-3 clefted; female flowers: in axillary lax spiciform racemes much shorter than the leaves, solitary in each bract; bracts broadly ovate, ciliate; tepals 8-10, biseriate, outer tepals ovate, stiff, spreading; inner tepals petalloid, longer than the outer tepals, alternating with outer, cauducous; entire; disc glands 5, partly connate; ovary superior, pubescent, 3-celled, ovules 1 in each cell, laterally pendulous; styles thick, short, spreading. Fruit a capsule 7-15 mm across, 3-lobed, cocci globose, reddish, crustaceous, smooth; seeds globose, smooth, shining.

Karnataka: Belgaum, Chikmagalur, Hassan, N. Kanara, Shimoga, S. Kanara Kerala: Idukki, Kannur, Kollam, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur Tamil Nadu: Coimbatore, Namakkal, Nilgiri, Tirunelveli