Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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Commiphora Jacq. nom. cons.


Shrubs or small trees, deciduous; branches and branchlets often spinescent. Leaves alternate or fascicled, exstipulate, 3 - 7-foliolate, imparipinnate, membranous or chartaceous; leaflets sessile or shortly petiolulate , entire, crenate or serrate; lateral ones often smaller than the terminal ones. Flowers sessile or subsessile, bisexual or unisexual, solitary or in fascicles or paniculate dichasial cymes, crowded at ends of the branches. Calyx campanulate, cupular or tubular, 4-lobed, rarely 5 - 6-lobed, persistent. Petals 4, valvate, rarely 5 - 6, inserted on margin of disk, linear-oblong or oblong or oblanceolate, reflexed and apiculate at apex. Disk cupular. Stamens usually 8, inserted on margin of disk, in 2 rows, alternately long and short; filaments flat or filiform, often dilated at base; anthers oblong, basifixed, dehising longitudinally. Ovary sessile, ovoid or oblong, 2 - 4 locular; ovues 2 in each locule; style short; stigma 2-lobed, rarely 3 - 4-lobed. Drupes ovoid, globose or subglobose, apiculate, crustaceous or woody, splits irregularly at maturity into 2 - 6 valves, leaving the pulp exposed; 1-seeded.

Arabia,Pakistan, India. Tropical and S. Africa; ca 185 species, 6 species in India.

Literature. ENGLER, A.(1931). In: ENGLER, A. & K. PRANTL, Nat. Ptlanzenfam. ed. 2, 19a: 429. ABEDIN, S. & S.I. ALI (1972). Burseraceae In: NASIR, E. & S.I. ALI, Fl. W. Pakistan 26: 1 - 4.



KEY TO THE SPECIES


1a. Plants armed; leaves 3-foliolate; terminal leaflets larger than the laterals; flowers solitary or in fascicles 2
b. Plants unarmed; leaves imparipinnate with 2 - 3 pairs ofleatlets; terminal leaflet not much larger than the laterals; flowers many, in panicles 4
2a. Branches drooping; lateral leaflets minute, auriculiform 1. Commiphora agallocha
b. Branches erect; lateral leaflets not auriculiform 3
3a. Calyx lobes as long as tube; glandular hairy outside 5. Commiphora wightii
b. Calyx lobes shorter than tube, glabrous outside 2. Commiphora berryi
4a. Leatlets glabrous; terminal one long-petioluled, caudate acuminate; calyx tube glabrous outside 3. Commiphora caudata
b. Leatlets pubescent; terminal one subsessile, shortly acuminate; calyx tube pubescent outside 4. Commiphora pubescens


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