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<big>''[[Apodocephala pauciflora]]'' Baker</big>
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{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Apodocephala pauciflora'' (PROTA)}}
:Protologue: Journ. Linn. Soc., Bot. 21: 417 (1885).
:Family: Asteraceae (Compositae)
== Origin and geographic distribution ==
The wood is medium-weight, with a density of about 610 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content, and rather soft. The rates of shrinkage during drying are quite high. At 12% moisture content, the modulus of rupture is about 109 N/mm², compression parallel to grain 51 N/mm², cleavage 16 N/mm and Chalais-Meudon side hardness 2.4. The wood works well with both hand and machine tools, and smooth surfaces can be produced except when interlocked grain is present. The nailing properties are satisfactory. The wood is fairly durable and rarely attacked by termites and ''Lyctus'' borers, but it is liable to marine borer attack. The wood is resistant to impregnation with preservatives.
== Botany Description ==
Evergreen, small to medium-sized tree up to 20(–30) m tall; bole up to 60 cm in diameter; bark with a whitish, sweet-smelling exudate; twigs thick, densely reddish brown short-hairy. Leaves alternate, simple; stipules absent; petiole up to 5 cm long, grooved above; blade elliptical to oblong or sometimes obovate, 10–20 cm × 4–8 cm, cuneate at base, acute or short-acuminate at apex, margins entire, sometimes slightly toothed near apex, leathery, reddish brown short-hairy below, pinnately veined with 10–12 pairs of lateral veins. Inflorescence a head c. 5 mm × 1.5 mm, many together in a terminal, much-branched corymb; involucral bracts 10–12, ovate to oblong, unequal, arranged in several series, thick. Flowers in the axils of bracts, 3–4 per head, bisexual, all tubular, scented; corolla white, with cylindrical tube slightly inflated at base and 5 spreading lobes; stamens 5, with fused purplish brown anthers; ovary inferior, 1-celled, style white, ending in 2 recurved stigma branches. Fruit an obconical achene c. 4 mm long, crowned by the hardened, persistent base of the corolla.
== Other botanical information ==
Trees usually flower in August to December.
''Apodocephala'' comprises about 9 species and is endemic to Madagascar. === ''Apodocephala begueana'' ===The whitish wood of ''[[Apodocephala begueana]]'' Humbert, a small to medium-sized tree up to 20 m tall occurring in central-eastern Madagascar, is used for construction. ''Apodocephala begueana'' differs from ''Apodocephala pauciflora'' in its glabrous twigs and leaves, and in fewer and thinner involucral bracts.
== Ecology ==
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[[Category:PROTA prov]][[Category:Timbers (PROTA)]]