Sea Putat

Trees 7-20 m tall. Branches stout; bark fissured. Leaves sessile, obovate to obovate-oblong, 20-40 × 10-20 cm, leathery, shiny, base cuneate, margin entire, apex obtuse or broadly rounded. Racemes mostly terminal, erect, 5-15 cm, 5-10(-20)-flowered; bracts ovate, 8-20 mm; bracteoles triangular, 1.5-5 mm. Pedicel 5-9 cm. Flower buds 2-4 cm in diam. Calyx undivided, rupturing at anthesis into 2 or 3 unequal, rounded or acuminate, persistent lobes 3-4 × 2-3 cm and a tube 3-5 mm. Petals 4, white, ovate or elliptic, 5-6 cm. Stamens in 6 whorls; tube 1.5-6 mm; filaments and style white, red-tipped; outer filaments 7-9 cm. Ovary 4-loculed, 5-9 mm; ovules 4 or 5 per locule; style 11-13 cm. Fruit dispersed by floating, broadly pyramidal, smooth, 9-11 cm, apex tapering and crowned by calyx; pericarp spongy, fibrous. Seed oblong, 4-5 cm. Fl. and fr. almost year-round. 2n = 26.

Sandy seashores. S Taiwan (including Lan Yu) [Japan, Philippines; Old World tropics].

Mammea asiatica Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 512. 1753; Agasta indica Miers; Barringtonia speciosa J. R. Forster & G. Forster.