Leucaena leucocephala
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Description
On young branches bark is smooth, grey-brown, pubescent. On older branches and bole bark is darker grey-brown and rougher with shallow, rusty orange-brown vertical fissures. Slash is salmon pink. Leaves are alternate, bipinnately compound, even-pinnate, up to 30 cm long, with 4-8 pairs of pinnae each bearing 5-20 pairs of leaflets. Leaflets are linear-oblong, asymmetric, sessile, opposite, grayish green, glabrous except of margins, 8-16 mm long, with rounded bases and short-pointed tips. Upper side of leaf petiole bears a conspicuous, yellow green, saucer-shaped nectary gland between or just below junction of basal pair of pinnae. Stipules are early-falling, deltoid, very small. Flowers are numerous, tiny, bisexual, white to yellowish, borne in dense, rounded, axillary heads to 2-3 cm across. Peduncle is 2-4 cm. Bracts are deciduous, pubescent. Calyx is ca. 3 mm, outside glabrous at base, puberulent at apex, 5-toothed. Petals are narrowly oblanceolate, ca. 5mm, outside pubescent. Stamens are 10, sparsely pubescent, ca. 7 mm. Ovary is shortly stipitate, sparsely pubescent. Fruits (legumes) are in clusters, linear-oblong, 10-19 x 1.5-2, flat, straight, leathery, reddish-brown, split along sides, on pedicels to 3 cm, with acute beaks. Seeds are 6-25, glossy, dark brown, narrowly ovoid, flat, 6-9 × 3-4.5 mm.
Growing form
A thornless shrub or small evergreen tree with upright branching and open crown, 2-6 m tall.
The map represents observations of this taxon, but it may not be used as a distribution map.
- Total squares
- lyijypuu (Finnish)
- Vascular plants