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Mysore Potato Plum
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Mysore Potato Plum
ative Photo: S. Jeevith
Common name: Mysore Potato Plum • Kannada: Kodali Mara, Japle, Malekakkade, Chiralu • Malayalam: Mullaramaram • Tamil: Kodalimaram
Botanical name: Scolopia crenata    Family: Salicaceae (Willow family)
Synonyms: Phoberos wightianus

Mysore Potato Plum is an evergreen tree, up to 15 m tall, armed with thorns, spines often branched. Bark is greyish-brown, flaking off in irregular thick scales. Blaze is yellow with pink tinge, branchlets warty. Leaves are simple, alternate, carried on stalks 8-15 mm, slender, hairless. Leaf blade is 5-14 x 2.5-6 cm, lanceshaped elliptic-lanceshaped, ovate or obovate, base rounded or narrow, tip abruptly tapering, falling off. Margin is toothed ande leaves are leathery, 3-5-ribbed from the base, lateral nerves 3-8 pairs, pinnate. Flowers are bisexual, 1.5 cm across, white, in 5-7 cm long racemes in leaf axils. Rachis is rusty hairy, flower-stalk 6 mm long, sepals 4-6, 3 x 2 cm, ovate, frilly, petals 4-6, 1.5 mm long, oblong, hairless, stamens numerous, free, anthers 1 mm long, Style is 4 mm long, thick, grooved; stigma 3-fid. Fruit is a berry, spherical, 10 x 8 mm across, with persistent style, seeds few. Mysore Potato Plum is found in Indo-Malesia. In India it is found in the Western Ghats- South, Central and south Maharashtra Sahyadris. Flowering: October-April.

Identification credit: S. Jeevith Photographed at Sholas - Glenmorgan, The Nilgiris, Tamilnadu.

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