It is one of the most familiar trees in India. It is a deciduous tree, and reaches up-to a height of 25 m. The aerial roots are absent; the bark is grey and smooth. The exudation is milky. The leaves are simple, alternate and spiral. The new leaves are pink and the stipules are 1-1.5 cm long, lateral, ovate-lanceolate and puberulous. The petiole is 60-120 mm long, stout, glabrous, articulated with a gland at the apex below. The lamina is 5-13 x 4.5-12 cm, broadly ovate, base truncate or sub-cordate, apex caudate-acuminate, and margin entire, undulate, glabrous, shining and coriaceous. It is 5-7-ribbed from the base, the lateral nerves are in 8-10 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent beneath and looped near the margin. The intercostae are reticulate and prominent. The flowers are unisexual, inflorescence a syconia, sessile, axillary, in pairs, obovoid or globose. The twig wall is thick, the basal bracts are 3, 3-5 mm long, ovate-obtuse, silky-puberulous, persistent with the orifice closed by 3 apical bracts in a disc 2-3 mm wide. The internal bristles are none. The flowers are of 4 kinds. The male flowers are ostiolar and sessile in one ring, the tepals are 2, ovate-lanceolate, free and reddish. The stamen is 1. The filaments are 0.2 mm long. The anther is oblong and parallel. The female flowers are sessile; the tepals are 3-4, linear-lanceolate, free, brownish and glabrous. The ovary is superior, ovoid-oblong and 1 mm and red-brown. The style is 1.5 mm long and lateral. The stigma is rounded. The gall flowers are similar to the female. The Syconium is 4-8 mm across, ripening pink, purple or black. The achenes are smooth.
Nakshatra Vanam
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