Common Name | Jeedi |
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Botanical Name | Semecarpus anacardium |
Trees, up to 12 m high, bark 5-6 mm thick, grey to greyish-brown with tessellate scales, furrows longitudinal and horizontal; blaze dull red; exudation acrid. Leaves simple, alternate, crowded at the end of branchlets, estipulate; petiole 20-45 mm long, stout, pubescent; lamina 15-50 x 10-15 cm, obovate-oblong, elliptic-oblong or obovate, base acute, obtuse, round or truncate, apex obtuse, round or emarginate, margin entire, glabrous above, puberulent and glaucous beneath, coriaceous; lateral nerves 10-20 pairs, parallel, prominent; intercostal reticulate, prominent.
Flowers polygamous, greenish-yellow, 6-8 mm across, in terminal pubescent panicles; calyx lobes 5, ovate, margin ciliate, imbricate, deciduous; petals 5, imbricate; disc broad, annular, villous; stamens 5 inserted below the disc; filaments filiform, glabrous, in male flowers as long as or longer than petals, in female flowers shorter than petals; anthers oblong; ovary superior, densely villous, 1-celled, ovule pendulous from a basal funicle; styles 3, divergent.
Fruit a drupe, 2-5 cm long, fleshy, purplish-black, seated on an orange hypocarp as long as the drupe, pericarp rich in corrosive resinous juice; seed pendulous.