Tricalysia apiocarpa (Dalz.) Gamble - RUBIACEAE

Synonym : Dicospermum apiocarpum Dalz.; Diplospora apiocarpa J. Hk.

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution status Literature

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Trees up to 15 m tall.
Trunk\bark : Trunk fluted; bark pale grey, prominently fissured.
Branchlets : Young branchlets quadrangular, glabrous; apical bud usually exudes yellow resin.
Leaves : Leaves simple, opposite, decussate; stipules narrow triangular to 0.7 cm long, glabrous; petiole 0.6-1.5 cm long, slightly canaliculate above, glabrous; lamina 5-10 x 1.5-3.5 cm, elliptic to elliptic-obovate, apex acuminate with blunt tip, base attenuate, margin entire, chartaceous, glabrous beneath, hairy domatia present at axils of secondary_nerves; midrib raised above; secondary_nerves 5-6 pairs; tertiary_nerves horizontally reticulo-percurrent.
Flowers : Inflorescence small cymes; flowers polygamodioecious, sessile.
Fruit& seed : Berry, ovoid or globose; seed many, irregularly compressed, slightly rugose.

Ecology :

Trees in wet evergreen to dry evergreen forests between 900 and 1200 m.

Distribution :

Endemic to the Western_Ghats- South, Central and south Maharashtra Sahyadris.

status :

Critically_endangered (IUCN, 2000).

Literature :

Bot. Tidsskr. 24: 332. 1902; Gamble, Fl. Madras 2: 620. 1993 (re. ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 237. 2004; Almeida, Fl. Maharashtra 3:59. 2001; Cook, Fl. Bombay 1: 604.1903.

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