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Ceylon Cherry
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Ceylon Cherry
E Native Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Ceylon Cherry • Malayalam: അട്ടനാറിപ്പൊങ്ങ് attanaripongu, ഇരട്ടാനി irattani, മുട്ടക്കൊങ്ങ് muttakkon, നെയ്‌ക്കമ്പകം naikambagam,നായ്‌ത്തമ്പകം naithambagam, രെട്ടിയാൻ rettiyan • Marathi: ढाका dhaka, कौला kaula, कोगल kogal • Tamil: ஆட்டன்ரிகோங்கு attanrikongu, முட்டைநாரி கோங்கு muttainari kongu, பாலன்கச்சி palankacchi • Mizo: Rahphir, Ruphir
Botanical name: Prunus ceylanica    Family: Rosaceae (Rose family)
Synonyms: Pygeum zeylanicum, Pygeum cochinchinense, Polydontia ceylanica

Ceylon Cherry is an evergreen tree, up to 25 m tall, bark 6-8 mm thick, brownish-black, rough, vertically fissured and shallowly horizontally cracked forming thin tessellate flakes; branchlets prominently warty. Leaves are simple, alternate; stipules small, lateral, cauducous; leaf-stalk 10-22 mm, stout, grooved above, hairless; blade 10-21 x 4.5-8.5 cm, ovate, ovate-lanceshaped, oblong-lanceshaped, or elliptic-ovate, base pointed, round or oblique, tip tapering or bluntly pointed, margin entire, hairless, leathery; lateral nerves 5-9 pairs, pinnate, prominent, slender, intercostae netveined, prominent, 2 pitted glands at base on either side of the midrib often present. Flowers bisexual, 5-6 mm across, white, in in leaf-axils racemes; bracts forming a cone in buds, deciduous; calyx tube bell-shaped; lobes 5-6, ovate, pointed or blunt, densely hairy; petals 5-6, oblong, woolly without; stamens 20-30; filaments slender, incurved; anthers small; ovary stalkless, inferior, 1-celled, hairless, ovules 2, drooping; style 1, subulate; stigma capitate. Fruit a drupe 20-25 x 35-37 mm, depressed spherical, obscurely 2-lobed, hairless; seeds 2, spherical. Ceylon Cherry is found in Indo-malayasia - in India it found throughout the Western Ghats.

Identification credit: Shrikant Ingalhalikar Photographed in Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra.

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