Turpinia malabarica Gamble - STAPHYLEACEAE

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Vernacular names : Malayalam: Alunkumaram, Kanakkappalam, Marali

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literature

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Trees up to 12 m tall.
Trunk\bark : Bark brownish, smooth, scaly when mature; blaze reddish-brown.
Branchlets : Young branchlets angular to subterete, minutely puberulous.
Leaves : Leaves compound, imparipinnate, 17-40 cm long, opposite, decussate; stipule interpetiolar, caducous and leaving scar; rachis pulvinate, terete, glabrous; petiolule 0.3 long for the lateral leaflets and 1.3 cm with swollen apex long in terminal one, canaliculate, glabrous; leaflets opposite, 3 to 9, 7-16 x 3.5- 8.5 cm, elliptic to broadly elliptic, apex acuminate, base acute to rounded, margin serrate, coriaceous, glabrous; midrib thinly raised above; secondary_nerves 5-7 pairs, gradually curved and ascending towards apex; tertiary_nerves reticulo-percurrent.
Flowers : Inflorescence terminal or axillary panicle; flowers yellowish; pedicel ca. 0.2 cm long.
Fruit& seed : Berry, woody, subglobose to 2.5 cm across, slightly rugose, whitish-brown; seeds 3.

Ecology :

Understorey trees in wet evergreen up to 1200 m.

Distribution :

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

Literature :

Gamble, Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1917: 135. 1916; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 241. 1997 (re. ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 110. 2004.

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