Bridelia retusa
Family: EUPHORBIACEAE
Malayalam Name(s): Asuvamaram, Kaini, Kasi, Kadukumaram, Komanji, Mukkayini, Mullumaruthu, Mulluvenga, Mullankkayini
Habit: Tree
Flowering & Fruiting: August-December
Habitat: Semi-evergreen and deciduous forests, also in the plains
Description: Deciduous trees, to 20 m high, bark greyish-brown; young trees armed with sharp thorns; branchlets thinly hairy. Leaves simple, alternate, 5-22 x 3-11 cm, broadly elliptic, oblong, elliptic-oblong, obovate or obovate-oblong, apex obtuse retuse or subacute, base round, obtuse, truncate, cordate or acute, margin entire or slightly crenulate, bright green and glabrous above(turning pinkish-brown before falling), glaucous and usually finely tomentose beneath, coriaceous; stipules 7 mm long, lateral, lanceolate, deciduous; petiole 9-15 mm long, stout, pubescent when young; lateral nerves 14-25 pairs, parallel, prominent, dichotomously forked near the margin, intercostae scalariform, prominent. Flowers unisexual; greenish-yellow, sessile or shortly pedicellate, crowded in dense axillary or terminal, some times paniculate spikes often exceeding the leaves; bracts scaly. Male flowers: 7 mm across, tepals 10, biseriate, valvate; outer tepals 3 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, thick, truncate, shortly connate, acute, inner ones 2 mm, obovate, cuneate, obtuse, fimbriate; stamens 5, monadelphous, born on a gonophore, exserted; filaments 0.7 mm, anthers oblong; pistillode bifurcate; disc annular. Female flowers: 6.5 mm across, tepals 10, biseriate, lanceolate, valvate; outer and inner 2.5 and 1.5 mm long, coriaceous, puberulous without, truncate, shortly connate, fimbriate, acute; ovary half inferior, globose, 2 x 1 mm, 2-locular, ovules 2 in each cell; styles 2, forked, 2 mm; stigmatiferous; disc with an inner, membranous, fimbriate corona enclosing basal part of ovary. Fruit a drupe, 7-8 mm across, purplish-black, seated on the persistent, slightly enlarged calyx, pyrenes 2, epicarp crustaceous; seed one in each pyrene.
