Dimocarpus longan Lour. - SAPINDACEAE

Synonym : Nephelium longana (Lam.) Camp.

Vernacular names : Tamil: Kattupuvam, ShempuvanMalayalam: Chempoovana, Chempunna, Malampoovathi, Malampuvanna, Mulei, Pasakotta, PoripunaKannada: KanakindeliEnglish: 

English   Kannada   Tamil   

Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literature

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Large buttressed trees up to 25 m tall.
Trunk\bark : Bark brown, irregularly flaky when mature; inner bark cream.
Branchlets : Young branchlets terete, lenticellate, minutely stellate hairy when young, later glabrous.
Leaves : Leaves compound, usually imparipinnate, sometimes paripinnate, alternate, spiral, clustered at twig ends, 15-40 cm long; rachis terete, pulvinate; petiolule stout, 0.5-0.8 cm long, canaliculate; leaflets 4-8 (-10) pairs, alternate, 8-18.5 (-20.3) x 2.5-7 cm, lanceolate or narrow elliptic-oblong, apex gradually acuminate with blunt tip or subacute, sometimes obtuse, base rounded to acute, sometimes asymmetric, margin entire, coriaceous, glaucous beneath, glabrous; midrib slightly raised above; secondary_nerves 10-20 pairs, nearly straight and curved near margin; tertiary_nerves reticulo-percurrent.
Flowers : Inflorescence terminal and axillary, much branched panicles; flowers sessile.
Fruit& seed : Schizocarp, globose, tubercled, red, 1.5 cm across; seed one.

Ecology :

Canopy trees in evergreen forests up to 1400 m.

Distribution :

Indomalaysia; in the Western_Ghats- throughout.

Literature :

Lour., Fl. Cochinch. 233. 1790; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 252. 1997 (re. ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6:107. 2004; Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 2: 193. 1996; Cook, Fl. Bombay 1:267. 1903; Almeida, Fl. Maharashtra 1.

Top of the Page