Michelia champaca L. - MAGNOLIACEAE

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literatures

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Trees, buttressed, up to 30 m tall.
Trunk & Bark : Bark grey, lenticellate; blaze cream with orange speckles.
Branches and Branchlets : Branchlets terete with annular scars of caducous stipules, glabrous; apical bud covered by sericeous lanceolate stipules.
Leaves : Leaves simple, alternate, spiral; petiole 1-3 cm long, stout and planoconvex in cross section; lamina 9.5-25 x 3.5-9 cm, elliptic-lanceolate, apex acuminate with twisted acumen, base acute to attenuate, margin slightly undulate, glabrous, chartaceous; midrib nearly flat above; secondary_nerves 12-16 pairs; tertiary_nerves closely and strongly reticulate.
Inflorescence / Flower : Flowers solitary, axillary, large, yellow, fragrant.
Fruit and Seed : Follicles, warty, 2-3 cm long, arranged as spike, dehiscing dorsally; seed 1, scarlet.

Ecology :

Occasional trees in low and medium elevation evergreen forests, up to 2400 m. Also cultivated.

Distribution :

Indomalaysia and China; in the Western_Ghats- South and Central Sahyadris.

Literatures :

Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 536. 1753; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 9. 1997 (re. ed); Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 1: 37. 1984; Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 15. 2004.

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