Leptonychia caudata (Wall. ex G. Don) Burret

Small trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, 10-14 x 3-4.5 cm, oblong or elliptic, ovate or obovate rounded at base, acuminate to caudate at apex, obscurely undulate glabrous; petioles 6-10 mm long, glabrescent; stipules 3-5 mm long, lanceolate, acute, velutinous outside, glabrous inside, caducous. Flowers axillary, solitary or up to 7 in short cymes; peduncles 5-10 mm long; pedicels 2-6 mm long; bracts 1-3 x 1 mm, ovate to triangular oblong, subglabrous to velutinous outside. Sepals 7-10 mm long, free, linear-lanceolate, finely pubescent outside. Petals greenish-white or light green, ca 2 x 2 mm, free, orbicular, densely villous, margins prominently hairy. Stamens 10, united at base around the ovary; filaments in pairs, 3-5 cm long, alternating with 5 small, tooth-like staminodes, each fertile filaments bears a sterile filaments at its back; anthers up to 1.5 mm long, ovoid to sagittiform. Ovary 2-2.5 mm long, obovoid, pubescent, 2-5 loculed; styles 4-5 mm long, pubescent; stigmas indistinctly 2-3 lobed, linear. Capsules 1.5-2.5 x 1.5 cm, globose to obovoid, shortly acuminate, 4-lobed, verrucose, densely downy, 2-5 loculed, 1-3 seeded, dehiscing loculicidally or septicidally or irregularly; seeds 6-10 mm long, ellipsoid to ovoid, shining black with an orange-coloured fleshy aril.

Habit: Shrub to Small tree

Indomalayasia; in the Western Ghats- South Sahyadri and Central Sahyadri (up to Coorg Region).

Kerala: Kannur, Kollam, Malappuram, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur