Dalbergia latifolia
Family: FABACEAE/LEGUMINOSAE (Subfam.: Papilionoideae)
Malayalam Name(s): Cholaveetti, Eeti, Kariveeti, Veeti
English name(s): Bombay blackwood, East Indian rosewood, Indonesia rosewood, Malabar rosewood
Habit: Tree
Flowering & Fruiting: August-September
Habitat: Dry and moist deciduous forests, also in the plains
Description: Deciduous trees, to 25 m high, bark 10-15 mm thick, grey, smooth with short irregular cracks, exfoliating in thin fibrous longitudinal flakes; blaze yellow, turning to yellow-brown. Leaves imparipinnate, rarely 1-foliate, alternate; stipules small, lateral, deciduous; rachis 7.5-20.5 cm, slender, pulvinate, glabrous; leaflets 3-9, alternate, exstipe llate; petiolule upto 10 mm, stout, grooved above, glabrous; lamina 2.5-10 x 2.5-10 cm, orbicular, base acute or very rarely truncate, apex obtuse or emarginate, margin entire, glabrous, glaucous beneath, coriaceous; lateral nerves 5-10 pairs, pinnate, slender, ascending, prominent, intercostae reticulate, faint. Flowers bisexual, 5-6 mm long, white, in short corymbose panicles from the axils of fallen leaves of previous years shoot; bracteoles small, deciduous; calyx tube campanulate; lobes 5, subequal, upper 2 connate, lateral obtuse, lower acute; petals 5, standard petal obovate, cuneate at base, reflexed, wings 6 x 2.5 mm, clawed, base auricled, keel 6 mm long, hastate, united, clawed; stamens 9, monadelphous; staminal tube 4 mm, split open one side; ovary stipitate, inferior, 5-7 mm, glabrous, 1-celled, ovules 1-few; style slender, incurved, glabrous; stigma capitate. Fruit a pod, 5-7.5 x 1.5-1.8 cm, oblong-lanceolate, tip obtuse, distinctly marked in the place of seeds, but not wrinkled, indehiscent; seeds 1-4, reniform, brown.
