Flowers of simpoh

Basically, the most powerful source of recognizing Dillenia to its' species is through its flower. However, when you are in a hurry, you might not be lucky enough to bump into a flower no matter how frequent your visits are. That's what i went through in my crazy venture looking for Dillenia. This is because simpoh tree have odd flowering period and sometimes you will only find one tree flowering or fruiting while the rest are in a sterile state.

However, don't be too frustrated though. I found out from my analyses lately that we can actually differentiate the species of Dillenia through it's vegetative organ such as petiole, type of venation, the indumentum on the leaves as well as the colour of dried leaves. So far, i'm positive that this is enough to help to determine Dillenia species in Peninsular Malaysia.

As far as i'm concerned, i found out that generally Dillenia flowers are found in two forms. The two forms are:

1) The anther are approximately almost the same length and not clearly divided

2) The anther are divided into two groups where the inner stamen are longer with its' apex a little bit curved outwards while the outer stamens are shorter

If you noticed, you'll found out from the photo above that the sepals of simpoh are divided into tow types where the Dillenia species with dehiscent fruits have thin sepals while the species with indehiscent fruits are of thick sepals. Guess you can figure out from the picture which belong to which right? From top view, we can see that the carpel look like a spreading star (D. indica; top). The purple colour of the stamens is a very distinctive character only occur in D. excelsa that differentiate it from other species in Peninsular Malaysia.