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Alpine Almond
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Alpine Almond
E Native Tree elliptic Photo: Siddarth Machado
Common name: Alpine Almond • Kannada: ಸಣ್ಣಸೊಳ್ತಿ Sannasolti, ತೊರತಿ Torathi, ಮರತುತ್ತಿ Maratutti • Malayalam: Attuchankala, Malmurutti, Malamaravetti, Vilamaram • Tamil: Attuchankalai, Koranguthalai, Maravetti
Botanical name: Hydnocarpus alpina    Family: Achariaceae (Acharia family)

Alpine Almond is a trees up to 15 m; bark 5-6 mm thick, smooth, greyish-brown, slightly rough; branchlets puberulus. Young leaves copper red. Leaves simple, alternate, drooping; stipules lateral, deciduous; leaf-stalk 5-10 mm, stout, swollen tipped, grooved above and hairless; blade 8-25 x 5-10 cm, ovate, elliptic-oblong or ovate-lanceshaped, base oblique, round or pointed, tip pointed or tapering, margin entire, hairless, glossy, leathery, lateral nerves 7-10 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent, intercostae netveined, prominent. Flowers unisexual 22-25 mm across, yellowish-white, solitary or in stout in leaf-axils fascicles; flower-stalk 1. 5-2 cm long, deflexed, velvet-hairy; sepals 5, 8 mm long, oblong, velvet-hairy, overlapping; petals 5, 1 cm long, narrow, hairless, with a scale at the base; scales linear, as long as petals, sparsely hairy; stamens 5-15; filaments hairless; connectives broad; ovary 1-celled, woolly, stigmas 5, free, radiating, recurved. Fruit a berry, 5-7 cm across, densely woolly, dark brown. Alpine Almond is found in South India and Sri Lanka.

Identification credit: Navendu Pāgé Photographed in Bisle Ghat, Karnataka.

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