Strychnous nux-vomica

Family: LOGANIACEAE

Malayalam Name(s): Etti, Kangnalam, Kanjiram, Kanniram, Kariram

English name(s): Nux-vomica tree, Poison nut, Strychnine tree, Snake wood

Habit: Tree

Flowering & Fruiting: March-December

Medicinal: Yes

Habitat: Moist and dry deciduous forests, also in the plains

Description: Trees, to 20 m high, bark thin, yellowish or blackish-grey, smooth or scurfy with lenticels. Leaves simple, opposite, -14 x 2-9 cm, elliptic, broadly elliptic or elliptic-ovate, apex acute or obtuse, base acute to attenuate, margin entire, glabrous, shiny, coriaceous; petiole 5-13 mm, slender, glabrous; 3-5 nerved from base, prominent, glabrous; intercostae reticulate. Flowers bisexual, greenish-white, in terminal sessile cymes, sessile, tomentose, bract 5 mm; bracteole 1.5 mm long. Calyx lobes 4, 1 mm long, triangular, acute, pubescent. Corolla greenish-yellow, tube 10 mm long, longer than lobes, slightly hairy near the base within, lobes 4, 4 x 1.5 mm, oblong, acute. Stamens 4, anthers sessile inserted at the throat of corolla tube. Ovary 2-celled, ovules many in each cell. Fruit a berry, 3-5 cm across, globose, yellowish-red or orange, glabrous; seeds 3 or 4, orbicular, flat, shiny, greenish-white, 2-2.5 cm diameter.

 മലയാളത്തിൽ വായിക്കുവാൻ ഇവിടെ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്യുക