Decne.
Description
Garuga floribunda is a tree of broad Indo-Pacific distribution, ranging from the Himalayan foothills and southern China through Southeast Asia and Malesia to New Guinea, Australia and the islands of the western Pacific, with over 1300 occurrences in GBIF spanning countries from India and Bhutan to the Philippines, Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga. It is a component of seasonally dry and monsoon forest, secondary forest, open hillsides and coastal to lowland woodland, generally at low to moderate elevations though ascending into the foothills. The individual photographed at Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at 1600 m in May, near the upper, north-western limit of the species, illustrates its presence in the warm subtropical hill forest of the eastern Himalaya.
The plant is a medium to large deciduous tree with imparipinnate, alternate, often crowded leaves clustered toward the branch ends, the leaflets opposite, serrate and frequently pubescent, the foliage typically flushing reddish when young. The flowers, produced in profusion in large terminal and axillary panicles (hence floribunda), are small and yellowish to greenish-white, five-merous, with the petals borne on the rim of a cup-shaped floral receptacle and the stamens inserted around a fleshy disc. The fruit is a small, fleshy, globose drupe ripening dark, containing a hard, ridged stone with one to several seeds.
Garuga is a small genus of the resin-producing family Burseraceae, the frankincense and myrrh family, and like many of its relatives the bark exudes an aromatic resin. The genus differs from most Burseraceae in its pinnate, toothed leaves and abundant small flowers. The species is wide-ranging and ecologically versatile, occurring on a variety of soils in seasonal climates, and is bird- and animal-dispersed via its fleshy drupes. It is widespread and common across its enormous range and is not regarded as threatened, being locally used for timber, fodder and as a source of resin.
Author: Decne. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 11, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora Malesiana (Burseraceae), A Monograph of the Genus Garuga (Burseraceae)