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Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution
Diagnostic characters : | Twigs glabrous. Leaves clustered at apex of the twigs, simple, alternate, glabrous, below glaucous, young leaves blackish when drying. Flowers unisexual on separate trees, petals absent. Fruits ovoid drupe, turning purple, shiny, blackish when ripen. Bifurcate recurved styles and calyx persistent. |
Habit : | Deciduous medium tree up to 25 m tall. Branches ascending to the main trunk. |
Trunk & bark : | Trunk straight. Bark smooth, lenticelled, light grey brown, inner bark brown, wood cream or white, soft. |
Branches and branchlets or twigs : | Twigs terete, irregular, lenticelled, with leaf scars, purplish green, glabrous. |
Exudates : | Exudate absent. |
Leaves : | Leaves simple, alternate and spiral, 5-20 by 1.5-3 cm, lanceolate or elliptic, apex acute to slightly acuminate, base acute, margin entire, recurved, blade leathery, dark green above, glaucous below. Young leaves drying blackish. Midrib flat above, primary vein single, pinnate, secondary veins oblique to the midrib, widely parallel, tertiary veins finely reticulate. Petiole long, slightly caniculated, glabrous. Stipules absent. |
Inflorescences or flowers : | Flowers unisexual on different trees, small, grouped in racemose inflorescence, axillary, pedicel longuer than 0.5 mm., petals absent. Female flowers styles 2, recurved, calyx persistent. |
Fruits : | Drupe ovoid or ellipsoidal, 1 - 1.5 by 0.8 cm, shiny, bluish green, becoming purple when ripen, calyx and bifurcate styles very small persistent. |
Seeds : | Seed one. |