Garcinia diospyrifolia Pierre (1883b

Nazre, M., Newman, M. F., Pennington, R. T. & Middleton, D. J., 2018, Taxonomic Revision of Garcinia Section Garcinia (Clusiaceae), Phytotaxa 373 (1), pp. 1-52 : 22

3. Garcinia diospyrifolia Pierre (1883b : xxxvii).

Type:— INDONESIA Kalimantan, Gunung Sekubang (Sakoembang), November 1837, Korthals s.n. (Holotype: L!; isotypes: BO!, K!, P!, UC!) .

= Garcinia opaca King (1890: 160) . Lectotype (designated here):— MALAYSIA, Peninsular, Perak, Larut , January 1886, King’s Collector 7232 (KEP!; isolectotype: P!, K!).

= Garcinia opaca var. dumosa Whitmore in Kochummen & Whitmore (1973: 277). Type:— MALAYSIA, Peninsular, Bukit Terom, Pahang, no date, Mohamad Shah bin Mohamad Nur 1560 (Holotype: SING!).

Tree, slender or bushy, small to medium sized, to 20 m tall. Bole: no information. Exudate white or light yellow. Twigs slender, angled, longitudinally wrinkled when dry, brownish red to brown or yellowish. Petiole finely transversely striate, the lines close and nearly parallel, dark brown to black or reddish brown, 0.7–1.6 cm long. Lamina leathery, dull dark green above, green below, and when dry turning reddish brown or grey-brown to brownish, darker and slightly shiny above, pale below, elliptic to narrowly elliptic, elliptic-oblong or elliptic-obovate, 2.5–20 × 0.3–5.5 cm, usually with caudate apex, sometimes attenuate or acuminate, to 20 mm long, base cuneate or decurrent onto petiole; midrib raised but with flattened surface or nearly square in cross-section above, especially at the base of the lamina, raised and sharp below; margin entire and finely revolute; secondary veins visible, fine and closely arranged, sometimes conspicuous above, brochidodromous; tertiary veins invisible. Glands fine but clearly visible below (not visible on the older specimens), dark brown to blackish short and long wavy lines, running across the secondary veins from midrib to the margin. Inflorescences terminal, male flowers 1–3, females solitary; sepals and petals 4. Male flower rarely found, pedicel slender, slightly angular, to 10 mm long, sepals yellowish turning brown when dry, concave, ovate, leathery, usually thicker than petals, 5–6 × 6–7 mm; petals reddish turning dark-maroon to brownish when dry, oblanceolate or obovate, 4–7.5 × 5–6.5 mm; stamens in four weak lobes, not open or weakly open at maturity, enclosing the pistillode; pistillode dark blackish, fungiform; anthers 2-thecous. Female flower with a flask-shaped ovary to 10 mm long, tipped with a convex or skull-cap shaped stigma, margin wavy; staminodes absent. Fruit ellipsoid, globose, ovoid or flask shaped, reddish-brown or bright maroon, wall smooth, thin, often with fine glandular lines running from base to stigma, easily ruptured when dry, to 3.7 × 5 cm; calyx leathery, tipped by a small skull-cap shaped, convex-discoid or occasionally sunken stigma, sessile or raised to 6 mm long, to 9 mm across, margin with 2–6 lobes; sepals thinly leathery, reddish brown, ovate to elliptic, concave; seeds 4, with white aril.

Distribution and Habitat:—Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. Common in lowland to lower montane forest.

Taxonomic Notes:— Garcinia diospyrifolia , described by Pierre (1883b) from Borneo (Kalimantan), and G. opaca , described by King (1890) from Peninsular Malaysia, are the same species. Whitmore (1973) created a new variety, G. opaca var. dumosa , differing from the type variety mainly in the overall appearance of the tree in Peninsular Malaysia (bushy vs. a tree). We are unable to find any supporting fruit or male flower characters so do not recognise it. We do, however, recognise three varieties which can be distinguished using in the key below.