Digital Garden

Neolitsea scrobiculata (Meisner) Gamble

മുളക് നാറി

Family : LAURACEAE

Synonym : Litsea zeylanica sensu Hook. f.

Common Names : Mulakunari, Shanthamaram, Vellatan

Flowering Period : May-August

Distribution : Western Ghats

Habitat : Evergreen and shola forests

Uses : Unknown

Key Characters :

Deciduous evergreen trees, to 15 m high; bark grey, smooth; branchlets glabrous, black. Leaves simple, alternate subopposite or in whorls, 5-11 x 2.5-6 cm, elliptic-ovate or ovate, base acute or attenuate, apex obtusely acute or acuminate, margin entire, glabrous above, glaucous beneath, densely scrobiculate, coriaceous; 3-ribbed from base; petiole 15-25 mm long, slender, glabrous; lateral nerves 2-3 pairs, pinnate, faint, intercostae scalariform, faint. Flowers unisexual, 3-8 in axillary, subsessile umbellules; involucral bracts 4, concave, naviculate, deciduous; male flowers: 5 mm across, tepals 4. Stamens 6 in 3 whorls of 2 each, those of the 2 outer rows eglandular, those of the inner row biglandular opposite the first row; filaments to 0.5 mm; anthers 4-celled, 1 m, upper cells introrse, lower lateral; pistillode linear, to 1.5 mm; female flowers: 6 m across; tepals 4, free, lanceolate, 3 mm, acute. Ovary 7 x 5 mm, half inferior, globose; style 2 mm; stigma discoid; staminodes 6, in 3 series, first and second whorl linear, third whorl of stalked staminodes with 2-lobed sterile anthers. Fruit a drupe 8 mm across, globose, with a basal rim of perianth tube; epicarp fleshy, crinkled, brownish-black when dry; seed 6 m across, globose.