Diospyros sylvatica Roxb. - EBENACEAE

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literatures

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Trees up to 35 m tall.
Trunk & Bark : Bark greyish brown, smooth; blaze reddish.
Branches and Branchlets : Branchlets slender, terete, glabrous except the flush with adpressed hairs.
Leaves : Leaves simple, alternate, distichous; petiole 0.3-1.2 cm long, glabrous, flat above; lamina 6-15 x 3-6 cm, elliptic to narrow elliptic, apex acuminate and twisted, base acute or slightly attenuate, margin revolute when dry, chartaceous or subcoriaceous, glabrous, drying black; midrib flat or slightly impressed above; secondary_nerves 7-9 pairs, slender; tertiary_nerves broadly reticulo-percurrent.
Inflorescence / Flower : Flowers dioecious or polygamous; male flowers greenish, in dichasial cyme; female flowers solitary or 3 flowered cyme.
Fruit and Seed : Berry, globose, to 2 cm across, glabrous; fruiting_calyx reflexed; seeds 2-8.

Ecology :

Common canopy trees in evergreen forests up to 1400 m.

Distribution :

Peninsular India and Sri Lanka; in the Western_Ghats- South and Central Sahyadris.

Literatures :

Roxburgh, Pl. Cor. T. 47. 1795; Gamble, Fl. Madras 2: 773. 1993 (re. ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 272. 2004; Singh, Monograph on Indian Diospyros L. (Persimmon, Ebony) Ebenaceae. 231. 2005; Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 1: 341. 1996.

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