Drypetes oblongifolia - Oblong-Leaf Boxwood

Oblong-Leaf Boxwood is a tree up to 20 m tall, bole fluted, bark pale grey, mottled with green, warty; blaze creamy yellow; branches horizontal; branchlets brown angled when young, finally round, greyish; young parts velvet-hairy. Leaves simple, alternate, stipulate; stipules lateral, small, falling off; leaf-stalk 3-10 mm long, stout, grooved above, velvet-hairy; blade 9-27 x 3-10 cm, oblong, elliptic-oblong or oblong-lanceshaped, base obliquely pointed or round; tip tapering, margin entire or distantly sawtoothed, hairless, leathery, lateral nerves 5-11 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae netveined, prominent. Flowers unisexual, cauliflorus or in leaf-axils, yellowish; male flowers: stalkless, 10-15 mm across, tepals 4-5, 8-10 x 4-5 mm, oblong to ovate; stamens 30-40, 5-10 mm long, inserted around the disc; anthers oblong; disc disciform, lobulate, velvet-hairy; female flowers: stalkless, solitary or in pairs, 10-15 mm across, tepals 4-5, 4-5 x 4-5 mm, ovate to round, tomentellous; disc annular; ovary spherical, 2-celled, ovules 2, tomentellous; style short; stigma 2 mm broad, flabellate. Fruit a drupe 2 x 1.5 cm, stalkless, spherical or ellipsoid-oblong, yellow, densely velvet-hairy, brown when dry. Oblong-Leaf Boxwood is endemic to the Western Ghats.