Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Cynometra iripa Kostel.


Shrub (woody or herbaceous, 1-6 m tall)
Tree
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Flower. CC-BY: W. Cooper.
Family

Kosteletzky, V.F. (1835), Allgemeine Medizinisch-Pharmazeutische Flora 4: 1341. Type: Rheede, Hort. Malab. 4: t. 31 (1683).

Common name

Wrinkle Pod Mangrove

Stem

Grows as a shrub or small tree to 7 m, sometimes multistemmed.

Leaves

New leaves green. Leaves compound with one to two pairs of leaflets. Basal leaflet blades about 0.8-5 x 0.5-3 cm, terminal leaflet blades 2.3-8.5 x 1.1-5 cm; unequal sided, leaflet stalks to 3 mm long, mostly enclosed by leaflet base. Stipules small and inconspicuous or absent. Lateral veins forming loops well inside the blade margin, 6-10 pairs.

Flowers

Inflorescence 3-9 flowered. Sepals 4, about 2.5-3 mm long, apex ciliate, white or very pale pink. Petals 5, about 2-3 mm long, white or very pale pink. Stamens 10. Ovary hairy. Ovules 1-2 per ovary.

Fruit

Fruit on a 6-10 mm long pedicel, an asymmetrical, somewhat suborbicular flattened nut, 30-40 x 30-34 x 17.5-20 mm, brown coloured, deeply rugose, distinctly beaked part way along dorsl side, seed 1, rarely 2.

Seedlings

Seed germination time 32 days. Cotyledons thick and fleshy, at or slightly above ground level, about 2.5-3.0 x 2.0 cm. Cataphylls about 5 or 6 before the first true leaves. First pair of leaves compound with two leaflets. At the tenth leaf stage: compound leaves with two pairs of leaflets, each leaflet blade about 2.8 x 1.3 to 8.5 x 3.3 cm. Leaflet stalk absent or very short.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in NT, CYP, NEQ and CEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 20 m. Grows in back mangrove forest and rarely in adjacent vine forest. Also occurs in Asia, Malesia and the Pacific islands.

Natural History & Notes

Description adapted from Cooper (2015).

RFK Code

3643

Copyright © CSIRO 2020, all rights reserved.