Thymelaeaceae FAMILY Least Concern

Gonystylus macrophyllus

Edibility

0/5

Medicinal

2/5

Safety & Hazards

None known

Cultivation Details

HabitTree

Growth—

A plant of the moist tropics, where it can be found at elevations up to 1,700 metres^[1]. The plant is found in the wild on both clay and sandy soils^[1]. Unusually for this genus, the seed of this species can be dispersed by bats. It is thought that this has two benefits to the tree; firstly that the seed gets dispersed away from the mother tree and secondly, the seed is not harmed in the process as it is often dropped prior to further predation since the bats whom pick up the seed are small and cannot hold the seed for long periods^[2]

Propagation

Seed - Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Gonystylus+macrophyllus>

Pollinators

Insects

References

[1]Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak Vols 1 - 6 — Soepadmo E.; Saw L.G.; Chung R.C.K. (Editors) · Forest Research Institute Malaysia; Kuala Lumpur. · 2002 · ISBN 983-2181-27-5 ↩︎A flora of the woody plants of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo, often giving details of plant uses.
[2]IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — http://www.iucnredlist.org/ ↩︎A list of plants under threat and facing possible extinction, usually with brief details of the threats and information on habitat.
[3]Flora Malesiana Series 1 — Various · Nationaal Herbarium Nederiand, Universiteit Leiden branch · http://www.archive.org ↩︎A massive treatment of the plants of the Malaysian Archipelago. Much of it has been made available to download from the Internet
[4]Dictionary of Economic Plants. — Uphof. J. C. Th. · Weinheim · 1959 · ISBN - ↩︎An excellent and very comprehensive guide but it only gives very short descriptions of the uses without any details of how to utilize the plants. Not for the casual reader.
[5]Medicinal Plants of Asia and the Pacific — Wiart C. · CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group; Florida. · 2006 · ISBN 0-8493-7245-3 ↩︎An excellent look at a range of plants, in particular focussing on the active principles that could be responsible for the medical activities.
[6]The World List of Threatened Trees — Oldfield S.; Lusty C.; and MacKinven A. · World Conservation Press; Cambridge UK · 1998 · http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org · ISBN 1-899628-10 X ↩︎A list of the trees on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Plant Species in 1998, often giving some information on habitat and the reasons for being on the list. It can be downloaded from the Internet.
[7]Tropix 7 — CIRAD · http://tropix.cirad.fr/en ↩︎An on-line guide to the timbers of 245 species of trees.