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Malabar Bladdernut
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Malabar Bladdernut
E Native Photo: Navendu Pāgé
Common name: Malabar Bladdernut • Malayalam: Alunkumaram, Kanakkappalam, Marali, Pambaravetti • Sinhala: ඇට හිරිල්ල Eta-hirilla • Tamil: Kanali
Botanical name: Turpinia malabarica    Family: Staphyleaceae (Bladdernut family)
Synonyms: Turpinia nepalensis var. montana

Malabar Bladdernut is a trees up to 20 m tall, bole buttressed, bark greyish-brown. Leaves are compound, opposite; axis 19-25 cm long, stout, swollen at base, hairless. Leaflets are 3-7, opposite, stipellate; leaflet-stalk 0.2-2 cm, slender, grooved above; blade 5-12 x 1.5-5 cm, elliptic, elliptic-obovate, elliptic-ovate or elliptic-lanceshaped, base pointed or wedge-shaped, tip tapering or bluntly tapering, margin sawtoothed, hairless, leathery, lateral nerves 4-7 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent, intercostae netveined, prominent. Flowers are bisexual, yellowish-white, 8-10 mm across, borne in leaf-axils and at branch-ends, in panicles with opposite branches. Sepals are 5, 3 mm long, ovate, slightly fused at base, blunt, fringed with hairs; petals 5; stamens 5; ovary stalkless, superior, 3 lobed, 3-celled. Fruit is a woody berry, up to 2.5 cm across, nearly spherical, 1-3 pointed, but not lobed, hairless; seeds flattened into one plane. Malabar Bladdernut is found in Western Ghats and Sri Lanka.

Identification credit: Navendu Pāgé, Giby Kuriakose Photographed in Karnataka.

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