Gouania tiliifolia Roxb.

 
  • Family : RHAMNACEAE
    (Buckthorn Family)
  • Family (Hindi name) : BER FAMILY (बेर फैमिली)
  • Family (as per The APG System III) : Rhamnaceae
  • Synonym(s) : Gouania leptostachya var. nainitalensis Bhandari & Bhansali; Gouania tiliifolia Roxb.; Naegelia dubia Zoll. & Moritzi
  • Species Name (as per The IPNI) : Gouania leptostachya DC.
  • Common name : Slender Spiked Gouania
  • Vernacular name :
    • Batvaasi (Bengali)
    • Dibok-pak-bidu, Dumigong (Garo)
    • Bitkil-chaand (Hindi)
    • Mei teiniong (Khasi)
    • Batvaasi(Nepali)
    • Penki tiga (Telugu)
    • Chepa-khak (Mizo)
  • Habit : Shrub
  • Habitat : Forests, often climbing on trees, thickets; low to middle elevations
  • Comments / notes : The leaves contain an alkaloid, and that they are used for washing ulcers. The bark is used as a shampoo. It is also either alone or with other drugs to stupefy fishes in rivers. The leaves are used by Lepchas as a poultice for sores.
  • Key identification features : Shrubs climbing. Young branches glabrous or sparsely pilose. Leaves alternate; stipules lanceolate and caducous, or persistent and becoming a rounded, dentate bract; petiole 1-2.5 cm, sparsely or densely pilose; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate or ovate-oblong, 5-9 × 2.5-5 cm, papery, abaxially glabrous or sparsely hairy on veins, lateral veins 5 or 6 pairs, prominent abaxially, lower lateral veins with 3-5 secondary lateral veins, base cordate, margin crenate-serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers polygamous, 5-merous, solitary or few in fascicles and shortly pedunculate cymes, axillary cymose racemes, and terminal cymose panicles to 30 cm, pilose. Pedicel short, ca. 1 mm, glabrous or sparsely hairy. Sepals ovate-triangular, apex acuminate. Petals white, obovate, hooded, ca. as long as stamens, clawed at base. Disk distinctly pentagonous, antisepalous angles elongated into liguliform appendages. Ovary nearly completely immersed in but not fused with disk; styles short, 3-fid. Capsule 9-10(-13) mm, 1-1.2(-1.8) cm in diam., crowned by remnants of persistent calyx tube, 3-winged, dehiscing into 3 subrounded winged mericarps, wing sometimes thickened at maturity; fruiting pedicel 1-3 mm, glabrous or sparsely pilose. Seeds brownish, shiny, obovoid, ca. 1 × 3 mm
  • Flower, Fruit : August-September
  • Distribution :
    • Uttarakhand : Dehradun district
    • Arunachal Pradesh : Arunachal Pradesh
  • Native : Andaman Is., Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Vietnam
  • Exotic/Native : Native
  • Literature :
    • Photographs of K. Sankara Rao
  • Read more :
  • Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Deepak Kumar (2024). India Flora Online. http://indiafloraonline-ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Gouania tiliifolia. Downloaded on 5 May 2024.

Herbarium Specimen(s)

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India Distribution

World Distribution
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