Filicium decipiens (Wight & Arn.) Thw.

ഇരുമ്പറക്കി

Family : SAPINDACEAE

Synonym : Rhus decipiens Wight & Arn.

Common Names : Irumbarakki, Neeroli, Valmuriccha, Muriccha, Sanimaram, Fern Tree

Flowering Period : October-December

Distribution : India and Sri Lanka

Habitat : Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, also grown as ornamental tree

Uses : Ornamental, Timber yielding, Fire wood.

Key Characters :

Filicium decipiens are evergreen trees, bark blackish or reddish-grey, rough. Leaves imparipinnate, alternate, estipulate; rachis articulate, broadly winged, swollen at base; leaflets 10-21, opposite or subopposite, sessile; lamina narrowly elliptic or elliptic-oblong, base acute, apex acute, margin entire, wavy. Flowers polygamous, pinkish-white, in axillary panicles; calyx 5 lobed; lobes imbricate, deciduous; petals 5, small; stamens 5, free, inserted within the disc; ovary superior; style hooked; stigma simple, bilobed. Fruit a drupe, ovoid, purple, shining; seed one, oblong.