Morinda citrifolia
Malayalam Name(s): Cherumanjanathi, Kattapitalavam, Manjanathi
English name(s): Great Morinda, Indian Mulberry
Habit: Tree
Flowering & Fruiting: July-November
Medicinal: Yes
Habitat: Waste places and mangrove forests
Description: Evergreen shrubs or small crooked trees, 3-8 m high; bark greyish or yellowish- brown, shallowly fissured, glabrous; branchlets quandrangular. Leaves simple, opposite, 12-50 x 5-17 cm, elliptic-lanceolate, entire, acute to shortly acuminate to apex, cuneate at base, pinnately nerved, glabrous; petioles 0.5-2.5 cm long; stipules variable in size and shape, broadly triangular. Flowers bisexual, fragrant, in dense globose heads, connate by the calyces, peduncle 1-4 cm long, opposite to normally developed leaves. Calyx tube hemispheric, limb truncate. Corolla funnel-shaped, up to 1.5 cm long, lobes 5 lanceolate, acute. Stamens 5, inserted on the mouth of the corolla; filaments hairy. Ovary 2-celled, ovule solitary; stigma bilobed. Fruit an ovoid syncarp of pyramidal, 2-seeded drupes, 3-10 cm x 2-3 cm, yellow-white; seeds black, with hard albumen and distinct air chamber.
