Diospyros fecunda H. R. Fletcher
Creators: name: Meeprom, Nattanon
name: Duangjai, Sutee
name: Utteridge, Timothy M. A.
name: Culham, Alastair
name: Puglisi, Carmen
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Magnoliopsida
Ericales
Ebenaceae
Diospyros
Diospyros fecunda

description: Diospyros fecunda H.R.Fletcher
Figs 7G–H, 9
Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Gardens,Kew)1937(7): 387 (Fletcher 1937).
– Type: THAILAND • Siam, Pattani, Yala, Betong; 26 Aug. 1923; Kerr 7658; lectotype: K [K000792545]!, here designated; isolectotypes: BM [BM00084634]!, E [E00318461]!, K [K000792546, K000792547, K000792548, Carpological Collection]!).
– Notes: Fletcher (1937) cited Kerr 7658 as the only gathering accompanying the original description of D. fecunda. Specimens have been located at BM, E and K, and all are well preserved. Four sheets in K were annotated as ‘type’ while the other sheets in BM, E and K were either unannotated or annotated as ‘co-type’ in H.R. Fletcher’s handwriting. Among those sheets in K, we select the most complete specimen (K000792545) with fruit attaching on a twig as the lectotype.
Fletcher (1938: 369).
Diospyros borneensis [non Hiern], sensu auctorum: Phengklai (1978: 72; 1981: 359); Gardner et al. (2015: 489, 688).
Description
Tree, 7–20 m tall. Twigs glabrous. Bark brown, shallowly fissured, inner bark brown, sapwood whitish yellow. Leaves elliptic, 8–15 × 3.5–6 cm, base attenuate, slightly decurrent, apex acuminate or subcaudate with obtuse tip, blade glabrous on both sides; lateral veins 6–9 on each side, arched near the margin but not directly anastomosing, tertiary veins reticulate or irregularly scalariform; petiole slender, 0.5–1 cm long, glabrous. Male inflorescences ramiflorous in short fascicle. Calyx green, tubular-campanulate; lobes 4, shortly divided, semicircular. Corolla creamy white, salverform; lobes 4, divided ± halfway to the base, oblong, curved outward. Female flowers not seen. Fruits solitary, green, turning black when dried, broadly ovoid, 3–4 × 3–4 cm, usually slightly wider than long, subglabrous, usually hairy near the base with yellowish hairs, pericarp smooth, shallowly lobed or longitudinally splitting near the base when dried; fruit stalk very short (subsessile) to ca 0.5 cm long, stout. Fruiting calyx slightly accrescent, 1–1.5 cm in diam.; lobes 3–7, irregularly divided when mature, spreading or reflexed, glabrescent outside, rather densely hairy inside. Seeds (8–)12–16, flat, asymmetrically elliptic, 1.5–2.5 × 0.7–1 cm; endosperm smooth.
Distribution
THAILAND • Phatthalung [Sinbumrong 355 (BKF)], Songkhla [Niyomdham 3065 (BKF)], Yala [Kerr 7658 (BM, E, K); Middleton 2950 (BKF)]. Specimens of this species have been rarely collected. It is found in the very southernmost tip of Thailand and may also occur in Peninsular Malaysia.
Ecology
Diospyros fecunda is endemic to Thailand and found in evergreen forest at 400–650 m elevations.
description: Published as part of Meeprom, Nattanon, Duangjai, Sutee, Utteridge, Timothy M. A., Culham, Alastair & Puglisi, Carmen, 2024, Notes on South-East Asian Diospyros L. (Ebenaceae, Ericales): commonly misidentified species in mainland South-East Asia, pp. 225-251 in European Journal of Taxonomy 932 on pages 245-247, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2024.932.2533, http://zenodo.org/record/11178563