Oldfieldia dactylophylla
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| ( Welw. Ex Oliv. ) J.Léonard |
Oldfieldia dactylophylla is a tree in the Picrodendraceae family from Angola , the Congo to Malawi , Mozambique , Tanzania and Zambia .
description
Oldfieldia dactylophylla grows as a half- to evergreen tree up to about 10-15 meters high. The trunk diameter reaches about 25 centimeters. The more or less rough and often cracked bark is brownish-gray.
The opposite or alternate to tufted and stalked leaves at the branch ends are composed of hand-shaped leaves, usually with 4–6 leaflets . The leaf stalk is up to 4-11 inches long. The entire, short-stalked to almost sessile, slightly leathery leaflets are obovate, lanceolate, less often ovoid. The leaflet stalks are up to 7 millimeters long. The leaflets are up to about 15-16 inches long and up to 5-6 inches wide, the middle one is usually the largest, and at the tip they are pointed to pointed or rounded to rounded. The leaflets are lighter on the underside and have a thick, rusty, silky hair, on the upper side they are initially only sparse, only denser on the central vein, hairy, later balding. The stipules are missing. The young twigs and leaves are rusty and hairy.
Oldfieldia dactylophylla is dioecious dioecious . Axillary, longer or shorter thick-stalked, finely rusty hairy inflorescences are formed. The female flowers appear singly or up to three, the male in short, zymous and very dense, capitulate inflorescences. The unisexual, very small and almost sessile, yellowish flowers have a simple flower cover , the petals are missing. Very small and hairy bracts are formed. There are 6–8 very small and 2–3 millimeter long, dome sepals with rusty hair on the outside, up to 6–8 free, protruding stamens are present in the male flowers and a reduced pestle can appear or it is completely absent. In the female flowers, an upper, two-chambered and densely rusty hairy ovary with two very short, hairy pistils with fine velvet scars is formed. There is a lobed discus each.
Small, about 1.6-2.3 centimeters in size and with fine velvety hairs, roundish, orange-yellow, peach-like as well as capsule- shaped , loculicidal, two-lobed, fan-shaped fruits with a constant calyx and small stylus remains are formed. The 1–2 obliquely egg-shaped seeds per compartment are about 1–1.2 centimeters in size, flattened and light brownish, with a caruncula and a fleshy seed coat .
use
The sweet fruits are edible.
literature
- K. Kubitzki : The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Vol.XI : Flowering Plants Eudicots , Springer, 2014, ISBN 978-3-642-39416-4 , p. 94 f.
- Food and fruit-bearing forest species. 1: Examples from Eastern Africa , FAO Forestry Paper 44/1, FAO, 1983, ISBN 92-5-101385-3 , pp. 71 ff, online (PDF; 8.3 MB).
Web links
- Oldfieldia dactylophylla at Useful Tropical Plants.
- Oldfieldia dactylophylla . In: S. Dressler, M. Schmidt, G. Zizka (Eds.): African plants - A Photo Guide. Senckenberg, Frankfurt / Main 2014.
- Oldfieldia dactylophylla A. Radcliffe-Smith: Flora Zambesiaca. Vol. 9, Part 4, 1996, at JSTOR Global Plants.