Melia L.

Trees, small to large-sized, deciduous, with an indumentum of simple and tufted, stellate hairs. Leaves alternate, 2 - 3-pinnate; leaflets serrate or entire. Flowers in large, many-flowered, axillary panicles, bisexual and male on the same plant. Calyx generally 5-lobed to near base; lobes sometimes imbricate. Petals generally 5, free, much longer than calyx lobes, imbricate. Staminal tube a little shorter than petals, cylindric, dilated at mouth, 10- or 12-ribbed, terminating in as many as or twice as many as anthers; sometimes appendages 2 - 4-lobed; anthers hairy or glabrous, apiculate or acute, inserted on margin or just below within staminal tube, alternate with or opposite appendages. Disk small, annular or cup-shaped, free around base of ovary. Ovary 4 - 8-locular; locules with 2 superposed ovules; style cylindric, elongate; stigma capitate or sometimes 3 - 8-lobed. Fruit a 3 - 8-locular drupe; locules 1 - 2-seeded; seeds oblong, laterally compressed, nonendospermous.

Old World tropics, with 3 species, elsewhere cultivated; 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Branchlets slender; flowers lilac, honey-scented; drupes to 2 cm long

1. Melia azedarach

b. Branchlets stout; flowers white, inodorous; drupes 2.5 - 4 cm long

2. Melia dubia

List of Lower Taxa