37. Suregada Roxb. ex Rottler

Shrubs or small trees, dioecious or rarely monoecious, glabrous throughout. Leaves alternate, distichous, entire or spinulose dentate along margins, pinnately veined, eglandular but with pellucid dots in each areole between reticulations, short petioled; stipules connate, early caducous. Flowers in short leaf-opposed clustered cymes or fascicles, often gummy when young. Male flowers: sepals 5, imbricate; disc glands many in between the stamens, angular, comose or dentate at apex; stamens many, exserted, free, inserted on vaulted receptacle, with numerous small glands at base of filaments; anthers attached close above the base; thecae 2, extrorse, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode absent. Female flowers: sepals 5; ovary ovoid, 2 or 3-locular; locules 1-ovuled; styles 3, patent, shortly bifid, spreading; stigmas 2-partite or laciniate. Fruit a fleshy depressed subglobose capsule, shallowly 3-lobed, 3-seeded, tardily 3- valved, loculicidally dehiscent, bright orange, edible; seeds subglobose with somewhat fleshy testa; endosperm fleshy.

Tropical regions of Asia, ca 31 species; 2 species in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves obovate or oblanceolate, sharply acuminate at apex, up to 15 cm long; flowers small, few in fascicles; fruits smooth, deeply lobed, keeled on lobes, 7 - 10 mm in diam.

1. Suregada angustifolia

b. Leaves elliptic to oblong-elliptic, rounded or obtuse at apex, entire, up to 25 cm long; flowers rather large, many in cymes or clusters; fruits rough, obscurely lobed, 12 - 15 mm in diam.

2. Suregada multiflora

List of Lower Taxa