| General Information |
| Distribution | Native to the Molucca Islands, New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands, widely planted for reforestation.In the Hawaiian Islands,
naturalized on
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.
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Habit
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Tree to 40 m tall, bark white, gray, or greenish, smooth or slightly warty; young parts densely reddish-brown tomentose or puberulent.
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Leaves
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Leaves petiolate, with a large nectary below the lowermost pair of pinnae and smaller ones between or below most pairs of pinnae, 15‒26 cm long, 12‒20 cm wide, with (4‒)8‒15 pairs pinnae; leaflets 15‒25 pairs per pinna, obliquely elliptic, falcate, 10‒20 mm long, 3‒6 mm wide, midrib strongly excentric near 1 margin; petiole 3‒6 cm long.
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Flowers
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Inflorescence a panicle, 13‒25 cm long, 12‒22 cm wide, 2-branched, often with 2 serial branches from 1 bract scar. Flowers with calyx 1‒1.5 mm long, silky pubescent, teeth 0.5 mm long; corolla cream colored or greenish yellow, 3‒4.5 mm long (excluding stamens); stamens 10‒17 mm long.
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Fruit
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Fruit thin, 9‒12 cm long, 1.5‒2.5 cm wide, densely pubescent or glabrous, with a narrow, longitudinal wing along the adaxial suture.
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Seeds
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Seeds 15‒18, transversely arranged, ellipsoid, 5‒7 mm long, 2.5‒3.5 mm wide, laterally flattened, with a pleurogram ca. 3 mm long and 1.5 mm wide.
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Notes
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Introduced as a fast-growing tree for its wood, which is soft and brittle. Has become naturalized on a number of Pacific Islands. Also know under the name of Paraserianthes falcataria (L.) I. C. Nielsen
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Contributor
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David Lorence
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