Smooth Litsea is a tree up to 10 m tall with
branchlets minutely velvet-hairy. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate;
leaf-stalk 8-15 mm long, stout, puberulent; blade 6.5-18 x 2.5-5 cm,
oblong-lanceshaped or elliptic-lanceshaped, base slightly obliquely
pointed or blunt, tip tapering or pointed, margin entire, hairless
above and puberulent beneath, leathery; lateral nerves 6-8 pairs,
pinnate, prominent beneath fainting towards the margin, intercostae
netveined, faint. Flowers unisexual, yellowish, 10-12 in in leaf-axils
or lateral nearly stalkless umbellules; stalked; bracts round,
persistent; perianth short, lobes 6, 2 mm long, densely hairy; stamens
12, in 4 rows; filaments hairy, of 1 and 2 eglandular, those of row 3
and 4 with 2-glands; anthers 4-celled, introrse; staminodes as the
stamens but those of inner rows subululate and 2-glandular; ovary half
inferior, enclosed in perianth tube; style thick; stigma irregularly
lobed. Fruit a berry, 1.5 cm long, ellipsoid, hairless, yellow. Smooth
Litsea is endemic to the Western Ghats.
Identification credit: Siddarth Machado
Photographed in Talakavery Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka.
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The flower labeled Smooth Litsea is ...