Suregada multiflora (A. Juss.) Baill.

ഫാൾസ് ലയിമ്

Family : EUPHORBIACEAE

Synonym : Suregada angustifolia sensu Manilal & Sivar.

Common Names : False lime

Flowering Period : September-May

Distribution : Indo-Malesia

Habitat : Evergreen forests

Uses : Important medicinal plant and known as 'heavenly fruit' in native range. Phtyochemicals possibly effective against HIV and breast cancer. It is cultivated as an ornamental, harvested as timber to be used as rafters and firewood.

Key Characters :

Small trees; bark grey, wood yellowish-white, close-grained. Leaves alternate, 8-17 x 3-6 cm, elliptic or elliptic-oblong, acute, with few serrations towards the apex, coriaceous. Flowers rather large, many, in cymes or clusters. Calyx in male of 5, concave orbicular imbricate lobes, in female of 5-6 narrower lobes. Petals 0. Disk in male 0, in female copular, the glands large, peripheric. Stamens 10-60, free, central on a convex receptacle, often mixed with rugose glands; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, dorsifixed, the cells parallel. Ovary 2-4 celled; ovule 1 in each cell; style minute, reniform semilunate or bifid, depressed. Capsule rough, obscurely lobed, 1.2-1.8 cm in diameter; seeds subglobose, arillate; testa crustaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons flat.