| Type | Indigenous |
|---|---|
| Family | Clusiaceae (Guttiferae) |
| Synonym | Mangostana morella Gaertn. |
| Local Name | Chigiri |
| Habit | Small sized tree |
| Botanical Features | Evergreen trees, to 18 m high, bark 3-10 mm thick, brownish-grey or brown to dark brown, smooth; blaze dark yellow; exudation dark yellow or orange yellow, sticky; branchlets quadrangular, glabrous. Leaves simple, opposite, decussate, estipulate; petiole 6-15 mm, stout, glabrous, grooved above, thickened, very shortly ligulate at base; lamina 6-16 x 2.5-9 cm, elliptic-obovate or elliptic-oblanceolate, base acute or cuneate, apex obtuse, obtusely acuminate or caudate-acuminate, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; lateral nerves 8-16 pairs, pinnate, arched towards the margin forming intramarginal nerve, slender, prominent, intercostae reticulate, faint. Flowers polygamodioecious, reddish, sessile; male flowers: 2-4 in axillary fascicles or on old wood; sepals 4 orbicular, decussate, outer pairs smaller than the inner, glabrous; petals 4, little larger than sepals, orbicular, veined, concave; stamens 10-12, monadelphous, the filaments combined in to a subquadrangular central column, anthers red, orbicular, plurilocular; pistillode absent; female flowers: axillary, solitary, larger than male flowers; staminodes 10-12 in a ring round the ovary, connate at the base; ovary superior, greenish, globose, smooth, 4-celled, ovule one in each cell; stigma peltate, sessile, irregularly lobed, tubercled, persistent, margin dentate. Fruit a berry, 1.5-2.5 cm long, subglobose, or globose, smooth, yellowish or light pink, surrounded at the base by persistent sepals, crowned by flat tuberculate round stigmas, pulp sweet, acidic; seeds 2-4, kidney shaped, laterally compressed, dark brown, testa muriculate. |