Volume 7 > Part 4 > Year 2002 > Page 782 > Myrtaceae > Baeckea

Baeckea frutescens L.wfo-0000310830

Sp. Pl. 1: 358. 1753; Miq., Sum, seine Pflanzenwelt: 117. 1862; Gagnep. in Lec., Fl. Gén. I.-C. 2: 789. 1920; Ridl., Fl. Malay Penins. 1: 712. 1922; Craib in Fl. Siam. Enum. 1: 624. 1931; Comer, Ways. Trees 1: 484. 1940; Kochummen in Ng, Tree Fl. Mal. 3: 170. 1978; P.H.Hô, Câyco Viêtnam 2: 74. 1992; Turner, Gard. Bull. Singapore 47: 370. 1995. Fig. 2.

Accepted Name : This is currently accepted.

Description : Small often diffuse shrub less than 2 m sometimes with weeping branches. Outer bark light grey-brown. Twigs grey-brown, soon flaking, with the fissures red-brown tomentose. Stem swollen below nodes. Leaves acerose, 3–8 by 1 mm, flat or channeled, thick, base decurrent. Petioles minute (ca. 1 mm) or absent. Flowers axillary, usually solitary. Bracts minute (ca. 3 by 1 mm). Pedicels minute (ca. 1 mm). Calyx narrowly infundibuliform with raised pustulate glands, ca 3 mm; lobes obtuse ca 1 mm. Pseudostipe absent. Petals white pink, ca 2 mm long. Stamens (8–)10 with the connective expanded into an apical gland (ca. ⅓ as long as the anther). Style 1–1.5 mm, stigma globose. Hypanthium deeply cup-shaped, glabrous. Fruits ca 1.5 by 1.5 mm, brown, topped by persistent calyx lobes and style. Seeds ca 0.5 mm, minutely-tuberculate, reniform.

Thailand : NORTH-EASTERN: Loei, Nong Khai, Ubon Ratchathani; SOUTH-EASTERN: Chanthaburi; PENINSULAR: Surat Thani, Krabi, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Songkhla, Pattani.

Distribution : India, Burma, Malay Peninsula, Vietnam, China (type), Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines, New Guinea.

Ecology : Either upland in evergreen forests and savanna or coastal on poor sandy soils.

Vernacular : Siao noi (เสียวน้อย)(Ubon Ratchathani); son hom (สนหอม)(Chanthaburi); kan thin daeng (ก้านถินแดง), son na (สนนา)(Surat Thani, Pattani); son soi (สนสร้อย)(Nakhon Si Thammarat); son sai (สนทราย), son thet (สนเทศ)(Pattani).

Uses: The dried leaves are used either as a herbal tea which relieves fever and sunstroke or as a clothes preservative. The essential oils are used in scents and soaps. The wood is hard, dark brown and durable but rarely of sufficient diameter for building.

Notes: The arrangement and number of stamens in the flower of Baeckea frutescens is not constant.