Dipteryx micrantha is a tropical flowering plant, a giant tree in the Faboideae subfamily of the bean family Fabaceae.

It is a dominant emergent tree in parts of the rainforests of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

[6] The ornamental bunches of lilac pink flowers high in the canopy eventually develop into a mass of large fruit pods, which are an important food for many native animals during the dry season.

In northeastern Peru, a local common name which has been recorded for this plant since its discovery by Western scientists is charapilla.

[9] The name kumarut as given in many sources starting in 1926 is only attested to the first collection of this plant by Günther Tessmann from along the Marañón river.

The holotype was housed in the Berlin herbarium (B).a [1][11][18] The second time this species was collected was 5 years later by Guillermo Klug in 1930 at a place near Iquitos, once called Mishuyacu, in Maynas Province, Department of Loreto.

A botanical taxonomic congress had decided many years before that the older name Dipteryx should be conserved, to which Ducke found himself unable to comply with at the time objecting primarily because of morphological grounds.

[20] In the most recent monograph on the genus Dipteryx, A Checklist of the Dipterygeae species by the Brazilian researcher Haroldo Cavalcante de Lima in 1989, D. ferrae was synonymised with D.

[21] His taxonomy was accepted by ILDIS (2005)[21] but not noticed or followed by some works such as the Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Gymnosperms of Peru (1993)[20] or the Tropicos database by the Missouri Botanical Garden.

[22][24] As of the late 2010s this species is mostly (mis-)identified as Coumarouna odorata in agroforestry in Peru, and is recorded as such by MINAG, the Peruvian institute of forestry, which collects statistics of this species under both this name as well as .... [6][25] Habitus: This is a very large tree, sometimes growing up to 60m, although in Manú National Park in Peru the average height was 44m.

The seeds are oily and edible.b [1][9][15] At least in Peru, D. micrantha exists in two discreet, easily distinguished morphotypes, which are furthermore chorologically distinct.

[28] Peru: It has been found growing in the departments of Huánuco,[20] Loreto,[1][20] Madre de Dios,[6][7][20] Puno[20] and Ucayali.

[7] Flowering takes place high in the crown of the tree shortly after the start of the rainy season.

[7] It occurs in mature, seasonal, evergreen tropical rainforest, which has dry and wet seasons, on alluvial soils in floodplains,[7][29] but it does not typically grow in forests inundated under water for a large part of the year (várzea),[3][29] although it has been collected in flood-free areas in this type of habitat,[2][10][15] as well as water-logged terrain on terra firme.

[7] In Orellana Province in eastern Ecuador, it is found growing together with the there-common trees Cedrelinga catenaeformis, Croton tessmannii and Brownea macrophylla.

[7][8] In Peru, other animals seen eating the ripe fruit pulp in the crown of this tree are the spider monkeys Ateles paniscus and Didelphis spp.

Because this is unsustainable, researchers have recommended exploiting the abundant stock of the Peruvian Amazon to produce needed charcoal, especially from secondary woodlands.

DGFF statistics confirm that D. micrantha, Manilkara bidentata and Calycophyllum spruceanum are the most abundant and suitable species used for production of charcoal of high caloric value in the Amazon, possibly also as a by-product of the parquet industry.

[10][19] In 1999 the main uses were as railway sleepers, vehicle frameworks, bridges over narrow ravines, flooring, heavy construction, external (outdoor) woodwork, joinery and parquet.

[5] Exports from Peru to primarily China began in the ... for the parquet industry to supply the North American and European flooring market.

[33] In Brazil, the conservation status of this species has not yet been evaluated by the Centro Nacional de Conservação da Flora.

[29] Harvesting for timber appears to increase recruitment of this species due to better seedling survival, because of both the increase in gaps in the canopy, and protection by farmers moving into recently logged lands, although researchers warn about over-exploitation, the movement of poor farmers into the region and the subsequent development of logged land as infrastructure modernises in the region.

[34] ^ The holotype was likely lost during the night of 1–2 March 1943 when an Allied bombing raid on the Berlin Botanical Garden destroyed many specimens.