Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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Pachygone ovata (Poiret) Hook. f. & Thomson, Fl. Ind. 203. 1855 & in Fl. Brit. India 1: 105. 1872. Cissampelos ovata Poiret in Lam., Encycl. Meth. Bot. 5: 10. 1804.


Tam.: Kadukkodi.

Woody climbers or stragglers, up to 15 m high; branchlets yellowish pubescent or puberulous when young, later glabrous. Leaves ovate-lanceolate or ovate, truncate or rounded at base, acuminate-mucronate or rarely obtuse at apex, 5 - 12 x 3 - 8 cm, chartaceous, softly pubescent to glabrous; basal nerves 3 - 5; lateral nerves 1 - 2 pairs; petioles 2 - 5 cm long, yellowish pubescent or glabrous. Inflorescences racemose, axillary, solitary or 2 - 3-fascicled, 5 - 20 cm long, puberulous; flowers minute, sweet-scented, in clusters of 3 - 5; bracts 4 - 5 mm long, puberulous or glabrous. Male flowers yellow; pedicels 1 - 3 mm long; sepals 6 - 12; outer 3 - 6 bracteiform, elliptic to rounded, 1 - 2 mm long; inner 3 - 6, elliptic, rotund, 1.5 - 2.5 mm long, puberulous outside; petals 6, oblong, auriculate at base, emarginate at apex, 1 - 15 mm long, glabrous; stamens 6, free, clasped by petals; filaments ca 15 mm long; anthers dehiscing by transverse slits; pistillodes 3. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male; staminodes 6, minute; carpels 3, subovoid; style flattened; stigma minute. Drupes obovoid, subcompressed, reniform, 7 - 8 x 5 - 6 mm, glabrous, on 3 - 5 mm long stalks; style-scar subbasal; endocarp smooth. Seeds 5 - 7 mm long; embryo ca 5 mm long; cotyledons oblong, obtuse at apex.

Fl. & Fr. Jan. - Sept.

Distrib. India: Scrub jungles, hill forests along slopes, often in secondary forests, up to 900 m altitude. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Sri Lanka, Malesia and N.E. Australia.

Notes. The dried fruits are used for killing worms and stupefying fish.




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