Cordia obliqua - Clammy Cherry

Clammy Cherry is a medium sized deciduous tree, about 10 m high, the girth of trunk of a full bearing tree being 75.5 cm, branchlets hairless, wood soft, light grey, no heartwood. Leaves are alternate, entire to slightly toothed and hairless, but may be more or less rough when full grown, variable in shape, from elliptic-lanceshaped to broad ovate, often with a rounded or heart-shaped base, basal nerves 3, rarely 5, blade 6-19 x 4-11 cm, leaf-stalks 2.5-5 cm long. Flowers are bisexual, complete, short-stalked, actinomorphic, white and hairless. A fully open flower is 6 mm across on the average. The calyx is cup-shaped. Sepals are about 4mm in length, slightly toothed from top, light green in color and gamoseplous. The flower has four creamish white color petals which are 6mm in length and polypetlous. The androecium contains two stamens, each having a very small filament and epipetalous. The inflorescence is at branch-ends or an in leaf-axils cyme, which almost resembling to a biparous cyme. It has 14 flowers per cluster. Fruit is a drupe, 1.3-2.5 cm long, when ripe yellowish brown, pink or nearly black, shinning but minutely rugose, endocarp rugose, very hard, in a sweetish sticky, almost transparent pulp. Clammy Cherry is widely distributed nearly the whole of the warmer parts of India and Ceylon. Also found in other parts of the world like Philippines, New Guinea, Hainan, Formosa, Java and Tropical Australia. Flowering: March-August.