FoI
Amritsar Gum
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Amritsar Gum
ative Photo: Gurcharan Singh
Common name: Amritsar Gum • Hindi: Phulai
Botanical name: Senegalia modesta    Family: Mimosaceae (Touch-me-not family)
Synonyms: Acacia modesta, Mimosa obovata, Mimosa dumosa

Amritsar Gum is a small or medium sized deciduous tree, young shoot hairless or nearly so. bark brownish or greenish grey, rough. Thorns are in pairs, below the leaf-stalk, compressed, recurved, dark brown, shining, 4-5 mm long, sometimes thorns absent. Rachis is 1.2-5 cm long, with a small gland near the base and sometimes one between the uppermost pair of pinnae. Sidestalks are generally 2-3 pairs rarely 1, 1.2-2.5 cm long, leaflets 3-5 pairs, stalked, stalks 1 mm long, lamina about 4-10 mm long, about 3-7 mm broad, broadly ovate or obovate, oblique, obtuse, glaucous, veins prominent. Flowers are borne in a stalked spike, about 3.7-7.5 cm long, stalk about 1.3-2.5 cm long. Flowr-stalks are about 1 mm long. Calyx 1-1.5 mm long, broadly bellshaped, hairless. Flowers are about 2-2.5 mm long. Stamens are indefinite, filaments about 5 mm long. Pods are stipitate, stipe about 5-6 mm long, pod proper about 5-7 cm long, 8-10 mm broad, thin, flat, straight, glabrous, apex deltoid, mucronate, late splitting. Seeds are 3-5. Amritsar Gum is found in Afghanistan, Punjab, Uttarakhand, at altitudes of 1200 m. Flowering: March-May.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh Photographed in Kashmir.

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