Avicennia officinalis - Indian Mangrove

Indian Mangrove is an evergreen tree, sometimes to 25 m, trunk to 1 m in diameter. Numerous upright air-filled roots rise above soil from long shallow, horizontal roots. Bark brownish-gray, thin, becoming rough and blackish, or outer bark yellowish-green and inner bark whitish. oppositely arranged obovate or broadly oblong leaves are 4-12 cm long, 2-6 cm wide, rounded at tip, acute or rounded at base, thick, leathery, edges slightly rolled under. The upper leaf surface is shiny green and hairless, underneath with fine gray-green hairs and resin dots. Cymes headlike in panicles, upright near ends of twigs, to 15 cm long and wide. Flowers many 2-12 together, stalkless, 7-10 mm long, 12-15 mm across. Flowers are bell-shaped, tubular, yellow or yellow-brown, turning orange, with 4 unequal spreading petals, stamens 4, inserted in notches of corolla tube. Ovary is conical, hairy, imperfectly 4-celled with 4 ovules. Capsule broadly ovoid, flattened, 2.5 cm long. Seed 1, large, flattened, without seed coat, germinating in water.