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Five-Leaf Chaste Tree
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Five-Leaf Chaste Tree
E Native Photo: M. Sawmliana
Common name: Five-Leaf Chaste Tree • Garo: Khong-sman-bol, Khungsuman • Khasi: Dieng-sart-udkhar • Naga: Tirale-chiang • Slyheti: Bhatkur • Telugu: Dippamann
Botanical name: Vitex quinata    Family: Verbenaceae (Verbena family)
Synonyms: Vitex loureiroi, Vitex sumatrana, Vitex undulata

Five-Leaf Chaste Tree is a tree 4-12 m tall, evergreen; bark brown. Branchlets are velvet-hairy and glandular when young, becoming hairless. Leaves are 3-5-foliolate; leaf-stalk 2.5-6 cm; leaflet-stalks 0.5-2 cm; leaflets obovate-elliptic to obovate or oblong to elliptic, thickly papery, both surfaces shiny, below yellow glandular, base wedge-shaped, margin entire or sometimes at tip crenulate toothed, tip tapering, pointed, or blunt; central leaflet 5-20 2.5-8.5 cm. Flowers are borne in panicles at branch-ends, lax, 9-18 cm, densely yellowish brown velvet-hairy. Sepal-cup 2-3 mm, rudimentarily toothed, densely yellowish brown velvet-hairy, glandular. Flowers are yellowish, 6-8 mm, 2-lipped, 5-lobed, outside velvet-hairy and glandular, stamens protruding. Fruiting sepal-cup is flat, fruit black, obovoid to spherical, about 8 mm in diameter. Five-Leaf Chaste Tree is found in India, East HImalaya to China and SE Asia, at altitudes of 200-1700 m. Flowering: May-July.

Identification credit: M. Sawmliana Photographed in Aizawl, Mizoram.

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