Ormosia travancorica Bedd. - FABACEAE-FABOIDEAE

Vernacular names : Tamil: Kuni, Kunni, Malai manchedi, Malamanchadi, Malaimanjadi, Kalmanickum  Malayalam: Malei manchadi, Malai manjadi, Manjadi  Kannada: Betta manjadi

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literatures

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Trees up to 30 m tall.
Trunk & Bark : Bark brownish, smooth.
Branches and Branchlets : Branchlets flat or subterete, glabrous; young parts fulvous tomentose.
Leaves : Leaves compound, imparipinnate, alternate, spiral and clustered at twig ends; stipules caducous; petiole 2.5-5.5 cm long, pulvinate; rachis 6-11 (-25) cm long; petiolule 0.4-0.8 cm long, canaliculate; leaflets 7-9 pairs, subopposite, lamina 4.5-10 x 2-3.5 cm, usually elliptic-lanceolate, sometimes the terminal one narrow obovate, apex acuminate sometimes caudate-acuminate with blunt tip in young trees, base acute, margin undulate in young trees, coriaceous, glabrous; midrib canaliculate above, stout beneath; secondary_nerves ca. 7 pairs, slender, often impressed above in thick mature leaflets; tertiary_nerves reticulate.
Inflorescence / Flower : Flowers pale pink in axillary racemes.
Fruit and Seed : Pod, elliptic, inflated, 12 x 6 cm long, beaked; seeds solitary, scarlet.

Ecology :

Canopy trees in wet evergreen forests generally up to 800 m sometimes extent up to 1200 m in southern Ghats.

Distribution :

Endemic to the Western_Ghats- occasional in South Sahyadri and rare in Coorg Region of Central Sahyadri.

Literatures :

Fl. Sylv. 45.1870; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 390. 1997 (re. ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 140. 2004; Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 1: 480. 1996.

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