Shrubs or trees, sometimes scandent or climbing, monoecious, usually pubescent with
simple hairs, sometimes glabrous. Leaves simple, alternate, symmetric, often smaller towards
apices of twigs, mostly entire or sometimes shallowly crenate along margins, often glossy
above and glaucous beneath, penninerved; lateral nerves usually close, straight and parallel,
terminating at margins into the marginal veins or joining the super-adjacents forming loops,
occasionally both types mixed; tertiary nerves mostly percurrent and unbranched or forked,sometimes scalariform; nervules reticulate; petioles up to 15 mm long; stipules usually deciduous.
Inflorescences axillary, glomerulate, arising along main leafy branches, sometimes on lateral
small-leaved or leafless branchlets, or in terminal leafless panicles. Male flowers: sessile or
shortly pedicellate; sepals 5, shortly connate at base, valvate, triangular to ovate; petals 5,
alternate to sepals, small, free, thin; disc thick-disciform; stamens 5; filaments connate below
into a column, free and spreading above; anthers ovoid to ellipsoid-oblong, basifixed or dorsifixed,
introrse, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode at the apex of the column, small. Female flowers:
sessile or shortly pedicellate; calyx and petals as in male; disc annular, with additional thin
tubular inner disc, enclosing the ovary, latter splitting into scales during fruiting; ovary 1 or 2-
locular, biovulate; ovules anatropous; styles 2, free or shortly connate at base, bifid above.
Fruits drupaceous, globose or ellipsoid, 1 or 2-locular, unlobed or shallowly bilobed; mesocarp
fleshy; endocarp hard; seeds 1 or 2 per fruit, often with a longitudinal groove; testa smooth;
embryo straight to curved; cotyledons foliaceous; endosperm fleshy or membranous.
Old World, mainly Asian, ca 50 species; 10 species in India.
Literature.
DRESSLER, S, (1996). The genus Bridelia (Euphorbiaceae) in Malesia and Indochina.
Blumea 41(2): 263 - 331. CHAKRABARTY, T., M. GANGOPADHYAY & N. P. BALAKRISHNAN
(2002). A revision of the genus Bridelia Willd. (Euphorbiaceae) for the Indian subcontinent. J. Econ.
Taxon. Bot. 26: 311 - 330.
6 a. Leaves cuneate-obovate to rhombate; lateral nerves predominantly bifurcating mid way, most
of them joining the superadjacents forming loops or a few (ca 20%) terminating directly at
margins
b. Leaves mostly oblong to elliptic or narrowly so, sometimes tending to be obovate; lateral
nerves predominantly unbranched and always terminating directly at margins
7
7 a. Leaves glabrous, mostly rounded, obtuse or subacute at apex; nerves conspicuously raised on
the upper surface
b. Leaves often tomentellous beneath (var. tomentosa), acute, attenuate or shortly acuminate at
apex; nerves inconspicuous or much less prominent on the upper surface
9 a. Plants pubescent; tertiary nerves of leaves inconspicuous to prominent on the upper surface,
conspicuous beneath; ovary 1-loculed; fruits 1-locular
b. Plants glabrous; tertiary nerves of leaves prominent to very prominent on the upper surface,
inconspicuous to faint beneath; ovary 2-locular; fruits 2-locular or by abortion 1-locular
