Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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Shrubs or small trees with strong, rigid twigs, armed with axillary, solitary spines. Leaves simple, alternate, with very short, wingless, non-articulated petioles, conspicuously parallel-nerved with distinct reticulations. Flowers in 2- or 3-nate clusters or in corymbs or panicles. Calyx cupular or campanulate, 3 - 5-lobed. Petals 3 - 5, imbricate. Stamens 6 or 10, free, shorter than petals. Disk cupular, enclosing ovary to its base. Ovary 15-locular; each locule with a solitary ovule. Fruits small, juicy or semidry berries with a glandular pericarp; locules filled with rudimentary pulp-vesicles; seeds 1 - 5, large, plump, smooth, green.

Tropical and subtropical regions of S. China, Malay peninsula, East Indian archipelago and the Philippines to New Guinea; 6 species, one in India, known in cultivation.




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