| Type | Indigenous |
|---|---|
| Family | Ebenaceae |
| Habit | Medium sized tree |
| Botanical Features | Trees, to 20 m high, base of the straight bole sometimes fluted; buttresses small, concave; bark 3-5 mm thick, yellowish to pale brown, peeling off in large irregular pieces leaving scalloped pits; branchlets slender, softly hirsute. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate; petiole 5-9 mm long, slender, grooved above, densely hirsute; lamina 4-9 x 2-5 cm, ovate or elliptic-oblong, base round, subcordate or cuneate, apex obtusely acuminate or subacute, margin entire, fulvous hairy on both sides, often glabrescent above except the depressed midrib, chartaceous; lateral nerves 6-10 pairs, pinnate, slender inconspicuous, intercostae reticulate, obscure. Flowers unisexual; male flowers: 3-7 together, subsessile, in axillary fulvous-silky cymes; bracts round, concave, silky hairy; calyx barrel shaped, silky; lobes 4, indistinct; corolla tubular, yellow, pubescent outside, throat narrow; lobes 3-4, about equaling the tube, ovate-oblong, much imbricate in bud; stamens 9-14, unequal, single or in pairs; filaments glabrous; anthers pilose; pistillode none or a hairy disc present; female flowers: 1-3 together, similar to and slightly larger than the male; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes 3, epipetalous; ovary superior, globose, hairy, 6-8-celled, ovule 1-in each cell; stigmas 1-3, short. Fruit a berry, oblong-ovoid, wider at the top, apiculate, glabrous, black, seated on a slightly enlarged, funnel shaped calyx; seeds oblong with 2 longitudinal groove; endosperm equbale. |