Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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Tall trees, rarely shrubs or (pseudo-) lianas. Leaves large, alternate, imparipinnate, rarely 1 - 3-foliolate; stipulate or ex-stipulate; leaflets opposite, slightly oblique at base, entire to dentate or serrate along margins, acuminate at apex; the lowest leaflets often stipuliform. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, sometimes pseudoterminal, branched panicle, thyrsoid (sometimes reduced to racemes or spikes, especially the female ones). Flowers bracteate, 3-merous, unisexual, or bisexual. Calyx cupular or urceolate; lobes deltoid, valvate, persistent, more or less funnel-shaped or flat with undulate margins in fruit. Petals free, oblong or obovate with a small inflexed apiculum, valvate or imbricate, fleshy and thick except the base and margin, creamy white. Stamens 6, rarely 3; filaments free or connate at base, often adnate to disk; anthers oblong-lanceolate, dorsifixed, sterile in female flowers. Disk intrastaminal, 6-lobed; strongly developed in male flowers. Ovary in female flowers ovoid to ellipsoid, 3-locular; ovules 2 in each locule; style clindrical; stigma capitate, faintly 3-lobed. Pistil in male flowers reduced to a Pistillode or absent, sometimes united with the disk to an ''ovariodisc'' Drupes ovoid or ellipsoid, often 3-gonous, usually blue black when ripe, rarely ivory white or red; pericarp fleshy (rarely fibrous); pyrene stony, 3-locular, 1 or 2 sterile; seed one in each locule; testa brown; cotyledons palmatifid to 3-foliolate, oily.

SE. Asia (from S. Deccan to S. China and Hainan), Sri Lanka, the Mascarenes, Madagascar, Mauritius, W. and E. Africa, Malesia, N.E. Australia, Micronesia (Palau), Melanesia as far east as Samoa; ca 100 species, 6 species in India.

Literature. LEENHOUTS, P.W.(1956). Burseraceae-Canarium In: STEENIS, Fl. Males. I, 5: 249 - 296; (1959. Revision of the Burseraceae of the Malaysian area in a wider sense Xa Canarium. Blumea 9: 275 - 471.



KEY TO THE SPECIES


1a. Leaves stipulate 2
b. Leaves exstipulate 5
2a. Stipules deeply pectinate, persistent 2. Canarium denticulatum
b. Stipules entire or slightly wavy, caducous 3
3a. Stamens free 6. Canarium vulgare
b. Stamens connate 4
4a. Inflorescence terminal; fruits ovoid-cllipsoid 4. Canarium manii
b. Inflorescence axillary; fruits spindle shaped 1. Canarium bengalense
5a. Leaflets rusty villous beneath; calyx tube glabrous inside; disk pilose above; ovary pilose 5. Canarium strictum
b. Leaflets glabrous beneath; calyx tube densely pubescent inside; disk glabrous; ovary glabrous 3 . Canarium euphyllum


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