FoI
Red Teruntum
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Red Teruntum
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Red Teruntum
Botanical name: Lumnitzera littorea    Family: Combretaceae (Rangoon creeper family)

Red Teruntum is a trees up to 7 m tall, trunk up to 0.5 m across. Bark is dark blackish brown, deeply longitudinally fissured. Branchlets are reddish or green when young, hairless. Leaf blade is dark green, inverted- lanceshaped or narrowly oblong-oblanceolate, 4-8 × 1-3 cm, tip rounded. Lateral veins are in 4 or 5 pairs. Flowers arise at the end of branches, in clusters 3-4.5 cm long. Sepal tube is 1.2-1.8 cm, bracteoles 1.5-2 mm, sepals broadly triangular, 1-1.5 mm, tip blunt. Petals are bright red, oblong-elliptic, 5-6 mm, tip blunt to long-pointed. Stamens are 5-10 (usually 7), about 1 cm, about twice as long as petals. Style is about 1 cm. Fruit is blackish brown when ripe, fusiform, 1.6-2 cm × 4-5 mm excluding stipe, longitudinally channeled stipe is about 5 mm. Interestingly, Red Teruntum is also cultivated as an ornamental pot plant. Flowering: November-December.

Identification credit: Prashant Awale
Photographed in Baratang, Andaman & Nicobar.
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