English Lao
Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution
| Diagnostic characters : | Leaves pink when young, glaucous beneath with three longitudinal veins, crushed fresh leaves and inner bark with strong smell of cinnamon. Fruit green with yellow spots when young, dark blue when ripen, calyx lobes present. |
| Habit : | Evergreen tree 20-30 m. tall. Crown bushy rounded. Sapwood whitish. |
| Trunk & bark : | Trunk straight, bark smooth and lenticellate, greyish- brown, inner bark pinkish with strong fragrant smell. |
| Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Twigs terete, brownish sparsely lenticellate, glabrous. |
| Exudates : | Exudate absent. |
| Leaves : | Leaves simple, opposite or sub opposite, 7.5 - 30 by 2.5 - 9 cm. elliptic to oblong , apex acute, base usually attenuate, margin entire, blade leathery, slightly brownish when drying, glaucous above, glabrous on both side. Three main primary veins, flat above, proeminent below, secondary veins oblique to midrib. Petiole with very short hairs. Stipules absent. |
| Inflorescences or flowers : | Flowers whitish green, grouped in terminal or axillary panicles, bisexual, flowers with unpleasant smell. |
| Fruits : | Fruit is a berry, ellipsoid, 1 – 1.5 cm. long and 0.6-1 cm. wide, dark green with yellow spots, blackish-violet when ripening, calyx lobes present. |
| Seeds : | One large seed. |