Spiny Maclura is a large thorny straggling shrub,
up to 15 m or more, with milky latex. Leaves are alternate,
elliptic-ovate to inverted-lanceshaped, to 8 x 4.5 cm, (sub)leathery,
base pointed, tip broadly ovate; leaf-stalk to 1.5 cm; stipules minute.
Staminate and pistillate flowers are stalkless, aggregated in groups of
1-3, in leaf-axils, stalked, head-like clusters; flower-cluster-stalk
up to 1 cm. Male: bract basal; bracteoles intermixed with flowers.
Tepals are 4, ovate-lanceshaped. Stamens 4, inflexed in bud; anthers
reflexed later. Pistillode minute, hairy. Female: Tepals are 4-toothed,
fused into a fleshy head. Ovary sunken; style simple. Syncarps are
irregularly shaped, more or less angled, to 1 cm wide, enclosing a few
anthocarps, with achenes immersed. Spiny Maclura is Peninsular India
and Sri Lanka.
Identification credit: N Arun Kumar
Photographed in Bangalore & Hosur, Karnataka.
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The flower labeled Spiny Maclura is ...