| Type | Indigenous |
|---|---|
| Family | Clusiaceae (Guttiferae) |
| Local Name | Kova |
| Habit | Small sized tree |
| Botanical Features | Evergreen trees, to 15 m high, bark smooth, surface greyish-brown; blaze creamy-yellow; exudation yellow, sticky, scanty; branches horizontal; branchlets quadrangular, drooping. Leaves simple, opposite, decussate, estipulate; petiole 8-13 mm long, stout, glabrous; lamina 8-17 x 2.5-7 cm, elliptic-oblong, oblanceolate or broadly lanceolate, base acute, attenuate or cuneate, apex acute or obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, thickly coriaceous; lateral nerves 15-21 pairs, pinnate, ascending, slender, prominent, looped along the margin forming intramarginal nerve, intercostae reticulate, obscure. Flowers dioecious, small, yellow; male flowers: to 1 cm across, 3-8 in axillary or terminal fascicles; pedicels about 6 mm long; sepals 4, 4-6 mm long, unequal, broadly ovate, fleshy, yellow; petals 4, 8-10 mm long, oblong, yellow flushed with pink or red; stamens numerous on a convex fleshy receptacle; anthers oblong; filaments short; rudimentary pistil absent; female flowers: upto 1.5 cm across, 2-5 in terminal fascicles, longer than male flowers, yellow; pedicel short; staminodes in a ring of 4 bundles of 3-8 around the ovary; filaments unequal; ovary superior, subglobose, 6-8 locular, ovules one in each cell; stigma sessile, flat, deeply divided into 6-8, papillose, wedge shaped rays. Fruit a berry, 2-4 cm across, depressed, globose, with 4-8 vertical grooves, smooth, yellow, ridid, beaked; seeds 4-8, oblong with a soft aril. |