Nothopegia beddomei Gamble - ANACARDIACEAE

Vernacular names : Kannada: Oolagera, Vyana

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Status Literatures

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Trees up to 12 m tall.
Trunk & Bark : Bark finely fissured; blaze pinkish brown.
Branches and Branchlets : Branchlets slender, terete, glabrous.
Exudates : Latex dirty white.
Leaves : Leaves simple, alternate, spiral; petiole 0.6-1.5 cm long, glabrous; lamina 6-16 x 1.2-4.5 cm narrow elliptic oblong to narrow oblong, apex caudate-acuminate, base acute to attenuate; margin undulate, chartaceous, glabrous, glaucous beneath; midrib raised above; secondary_nerves 14-20 pairs, moderate in angle, parallel; tertiary_nerves weakly percurrent.
Inflorescence / Flower : Inflorescence axillary racemes sometimes in paniculate racemes; flowers unisexual.
Fruit and Seed : Drupe, compressed, 1-seeded.

Ecology :

Understorey tree in low and medium elevations semi-evergreen to evergreen forests and secondary moist deciduous forests up to 1100 m.

Distribution :

South India and Sri Lanka; in the Western_Ghats- South Sahyadri to Central Sahyadri.

Status :

A new variety was established as Nothopegia beddomei Gamble var. wynaadica Ellis & Chandra. (Bull. Bot. Surv. India12: 257. 1970), which differ from N. beddomei proper by having small flowers (2 × 2 mm) with glabrous and short filaments than the anthers. It is endemic to southern Western_Ghats with endangered status (IUCN, 2000).

Literatures :

Fl. Pres. Madras 1: 265. 1918; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 265. 1997 (re. ed); Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 2: 207. 1996; Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 112. 2004; Keshava Murthy and Yoganarasimhan, Fl. Coorg (Kodagu)125. 1990.

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