n0A EUPHORBIACEAE 
of 2-3 male and 1-2 female flowers. Flowers 
5-merous, monoecious. Male flowers: pedicels c. 2 
mm long; calyx lobes oblanceolate, c. 1 mm long; 
petals narrowly oblanceolate, minute; disk flat, 
membranous, 10-lobed; stamens c. 0.5 mm long; ru- 
dimentary ovary and 3 stigmas present. Female flow- 
ers: pedicels 2-8 mm long; calyx lobes ovate, c. 2 
mm long; petals triangular, c. 0.5 mm long; ovary 3- 
locular with 2 ovules per locule; stigmas 3, 
each deeply bifid. Fruit a green dehiscent 
capsule, depressed globose, 2-2.5 mm long, 3.5-4.5 
Leptopus 
mm diam., each of the 3 cocci containing 2 
seeds, calyx lobes persisting and enlarging to 
4 mm long. Seeds ecarunculate, pale brown to 
black, transversely rugose, the shape of a spherical 
sector, ecarunculate. Flowering and fruiting: Feb - 
July. Fig. 74 
In Indonesia (Java, Timor), New Guinea and 
northern Australia, from the Kimberley to Cape York. 
Uncommon in the DR where known from the south 
of the region, but more common further south. In a 
variety of habitats and soil types. 
MACARANGA Thou. 
Evergreen shrubs or slender trees with whitish smooth, thin bark. Young shoots, branchlets, stipules and 
petioles shortly pubescent. Stipules triangular. Leaves alternate, undersurface of blades densely covered with 
sessile vesicular glands which darken with age, tertiary veins + parallel and forming a scalariform pattern, 
base 3-5 nerved, margin + entire, with obscure glands at the ends of the veins and blister-like intramarginal 
glands. Flowers dioecious, in axillary bracteate panicles, spatheate bracts tomentose and densely glandular, 
with laciniate margins. Fruit greenish, densely covered with granular scale-like glands and scattered filiform 
scales. Seeds black, shiny, spherical, c. 5 mm diam., ecarunculate. 
A genus of c. 280 species distributed through tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia, Australia and western 
Pacific Islands. In Australia 8 species occur, with 2 in the NT and DR. The local species are fast growing, short 
lived colonizers of gaps and margins of monsoon forest, forming dense thickets. The straight stems have been 
used by Aboriginal people as spear shafts (Levitt, 1981; Smith & Wightman, 1990). 
1. Leaves peltate; stipules 8-19 mm long; filiform scales on fruit 6-7 mm long 
1. Leaves not peltate; stipules <8 mm long; filiform scales on fruit c. 2 mm long 
M. involucrata (Roxb.) Ballion var. mallotoides 
(F.Muell.) Perry 
A slender tree to 12 m tall. Stipules 
caducous, c. 4 mm long. Petioles 26-120 mm 
long. Leaf blades deltoid to rhomboid, 75-220 
mm long, 50-171 mm wide, L/B 0.9-1.3, 
undersurface pubescent, veins on upper surface 
pubescent otherwise glabrous to glabrescent, 
base shortly cordately lobed with two blister- 
like glands on the upper surface, apex long 
acuminate. Male inflorescencel paniculate with 
racemose branches, 75-210 mm long, pubescent 
throughout. Female inflorescence 60-115 mm 
long. Fruit spherical, c. 5 mm diam., filiform 
scales c. 2 mm long. Seeds persisting after the 
capsule wall has dehisced. Flowering: Mar - Sept; 
fruiting: Sept - Nov. Fig. 74 
Endemic to Qld and the northern NT. Common 
in the DR. In monsoon forest with a spring- 
fed watertable, often on floodplain margins and 
M. tanarius 
M. involucrata 
clayey soils. 
M. tanarius (L.) Muell.Arg. 
A shrub or small tree to 9 m tall, usually with 
a single stem; a whitish bloom extending to 
the petioles and stipules. Stems marked with 
circular leaf scars and transverse linear stipule 
scars, and exuding a red viscous sap. Stipules 
persisting as long as the leaves, foliaceous, 8-19 mm 
long. Leaves peltate; petioles 50-330 mm long; 
blades ovate to orbicular, 80-500 mm long, 
52-445 mm wide, L/B 1-1.4, glabrous to glabrescent, 
apex acute to long acuminate. Male inflorescence 
100-240 mm long, pubescent throughout, spatheate 
bracts 7-9 mm long. Female inflorescence 
35-120 mm long, spatheate bracts to 20 mm long. 
Fruit 1-4-locular, c. 6 mm long, 9 mm diam., 
glands yellow-green and filiform scales 6-7 mm 
long. Flowering: Sept - Oct (June and Dec); fruiting: 
mainly Oct - Nov. Fig. 74 
