Kokum

Kokum

Family : clusiaceae

Characteristic feature :

Habit : Trees, to 15 m high, bole buttressed, bark lpale brown, very thin, smooth, rather shiny; branchlets drooping. young branches subterete, irregularly striate.

Leaves : simple, opposite, decussate, estipulate; petiole 5-12 mm long, slender, glabrous; lamina 6.5-11 x 1.5-4 cm, lanceolate or obovate-oblong, base attenuate, apex acute or acuminate, margin entire, glabrous, shining, membranous; lateral nerves 7-18 pairs, parallel, slender, prominent, intercostae reticulate.

Flowers : polygamodioecious; male flowers: 4-8 in axillary and terminal fascicles; pedicels 6 mm long; sepals 4, yellowish-orange to pinkish-orange, coriaceous, ovate-rotundate, outer ones 3-4.5 mm long, inner ones 4.5-5 mm long; petals 4, 5-6 mm long, thick; stamens many, inserted on a hemispheric subquardate torus; filaments short; anthers oblong, truncate, loculi laterally introrse; rudimentary pistil absent or a few equalling the stamens; female flowers: solitary, terminal; pedicels 3 mm long; sepals and petals as in male flowers; staminodes 10-, 18, in 4 unequal, 2 to 3 seriate phalanges alternating with petals, 1-3 mm long; ovary superior, 4-8 locular, subglobose; stigma 4-8 rayed, convex, coronate, rays tuberculate, often 2-seriate.

Fruit : a berry, 2.5-4 cm across, 4-8 loculed, purple or wine brown, surrounded by persistent calyx; pulp red.

seeds : 5-8, compressed in acidic pulp.