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Nilgiri Ebony
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Nilgiri Ebony
E Native Photo: Anurag Sharma
Common name: Nilgiri Ebony
Botanical name: Diospyros neilgerrensis    Family: Ebenaceae (Ebony family)
Synonyms: Maba angustifolia, Diospyros angustifolia (Miq.) Kosterm

Nilgiri Ebony is a small tree, up to 10 m tall. Bark is brown, tubercled; blaze light orange yellow. Branchlets are round with short internodes; young branchlets densely fulvous hairy. Leaves are simple, alternate, distichous; leaf-stalk up to 0.5 cm long, round, rufous hairy when young; blade 2.2-8 x 1-2.5 cm, narrow-elliptic, tip bluntly pointed to blunt, base pointed, margin thick and distinctly wavy, leathery, hairy when young, otherwise hairless above; secondary nerves about 7 pairs, branched; tertiary nerves distinctly netveined. Flowers are dioecious; male flowers 3 in in leaf-axils clusters; female flowers solitary, in leaf-axils, flower white. Berry, ellipsoid, to 1 cm long; fruiting sepals 3, slightly enlarged; 1-3 seeded. Nilgiri Ebony is found in Peninsular India.

Identification credit: Anurag Sharma Photographed in Agumbe, Karnataka.

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