Mitrephora heyneana - Nilgiri Cap-Flower

Nilgiri Cap-Flower is a small trees, about 12 m tall, with branchlets slender, round, hairless. Leaves are simple, alternate, distichous; leaf-stalk 0.4-0.6 cm long, channeled, hairless; blade 4-10 x 2-3.8 cm, narrow ovate to elliptic-ovate, tip bluntly pointed or narrowly tapering with blunt tip, base pointed to wedge-shaped, sometimes rounded, subleathery, hairless, shining, midrib flat above; secondary nerves 6-8 pairs, slender, moderately rising up; tertiary and higher order nerves finely netveined. Flowers arise singly or 2-3 in leaf opposed cymes, yellowish with pink tinge, carried on flower-stalks 0.3-0.5 cm. Petals are in two rows of 3, with the inner petals forming a dome through interlocking hairs. Fruits are clustered 1-3 seeded berries, nearly stalkless, spherical or cylindric with constriction between seeds, yellow woolly. Nilgiri Cap-Flower is found in eastern slopes of Agasthyamalai, Varushanad Hills, Palani and Nilgiris, and Sri Lanka.