Diospyros buxifolia (Blume) Hiern

എലിച്ചുഴി

Family : Ebenaceae

Synonym : Diospyros microphylla Bedd.

Common Names : Elichuzhi, Kattuthuvara, Malamuringa, Thovarakari, Thovara

Flowering Period : March – May

Distribution : Indo-Malaysia

Habitat : Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests

Uses : Timber yielding. It produces black heart-wood which is said to supply the best Malacca ebony. The timber was used for building.

Key Characters :

Diospyros buxifolia are trees with bark  blackish-grey, mottled with white. Leaves simple, alternate, bifarious, elliptic-ovate. Flowers unisexual, white. Male flowers: 1-4 together in subsessile small axillary cymes; calyx densely fulvous-hairy outside; lobes 4; corolla campanulate; lobes 4, orbicular; stamens 16, in pairs, united by their filaments at base; anthers ovate. Female flowers: solitary, subsessile; calyx and corolla as in males; ovary superior, ovoid 4-celled, ovule 1 in each cell. Fruit a berry.