Shrubs or trees, dioecious, up to 20 m tall, with simple, branched, or stellate hairs. Leaves
alternate, mostly crowded at apices of branches, penninerved; petioles pulvinate at apex, mostly
geniculate; stipules usually caducous. Male inflorescences axillary or cauli- or ramiflorous,
usually fascicled, very narrowly thyrsiform, sometimes apparently racemiform or catkin-like,
erect or pendulous; bracts small, often conduplicate, sometimes adnate to peduncles or encircling their bases. Flowers: pedicellate; sepals (3 -) 4 or 5, free, imbricate; petals absent; stamens 4 - 8,
free; anthers basifixed; disc glands minute or obsolete, interstaminal, free or connate; pistillode
present, peltate at the apex. Female inflorescences axillary, cauli- or ramiflorous, usually few
together or often arising singly, racemose, short and erect or elongated and pendulous; bracts
ovate to lanceolate. Flowers: pedicels articulated; sepals 4 or 5, free, imbricate, caducous;
petals absent; disc absent; staminodes absent; ovary 2 - 5-locular; locules biovulate; style
minute or obsolete; stigmas 2 - 5, flabellate or peltate, reflexed. Fruits capsular, fleshy and
indehiscent or tardily dehiscent or dry and dehiscent, 2 - 5-locular; seeds broad, usually flattened,
often enclosed in a fleshy outer layer.
Indo-Malesia, extending to the W. Pacific Islands, ca 56 species; 3 species indigenous to
India and one cultivated.
Literature.
CHAKRABARTY, T & M. GANGOPADHYAY (1997). The genus Baccaurea
(Euphorbiaceae) in the Indian subcontinent. J. Econ. Taxon. Bot. 21(3): 525 - 534.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1 a. Female inflorescences and infructescences 2 - 5 cm long; fruits 8 - 15 x 6 - 9 mm, bilocular,
readily dehiscent
b. Leaves cuneate, attenuate or acute not cordate at base; stipules 1.5 - 6 mm long, 1 - 2.5 mm
wide
3
3 a. Leaves membranous to chartaceous, sparsely furfuraceous above and beneath, often brittle
when dry; tertiary nerves distant or lax, mostly branched; male inflorescences very slender
(rachis up to 0.8 mm thick at base) with up to 0.5 mm long lateral branches, sparsely papillosepuberulous;
sepals glabrous or sparsely puberulous
b. Leaves coriaceous, not furfuraceous, not brittle when dry; tertiary nerves closely parallel,
mostly unbranched; male inflorescences stouter (rachis mostly 1 - 1.3 mm thick at base), with
longer (up to 2 mm long) lateral branches, densely papillose puberulous; sepals densely
puberulous
