Diospyros paniculata Dalzell

Dioecious trees, to 15 m high, bark 7-8 mm thick, smooth, black often with grey blotches; blaze dull red; branchlets angular, pubescent. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate; petiole 7-10 mm long, stout, wrinkled, puberulent when young; lamina 12-20 x 4-7 cm, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, base acute, round or cuneate, apex acute, acuminate or obtusely acuminate, margin entire, reflexed near the base, glabrous, coriaceous; lateral nerves 6-9 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae reticulate, surface finely reticulate. Flowers unisexual greenish-yellow; male flowers: in 3-5 together in short panicled cymes with a pair of ovate-cordate bracts; bracts 1 x 0.8 cm, pubescent; calyx 10 x 12 mm, globose, 5-angled, minutely hispid, deeply lobed; lobes-5, ovate-obtuse, margin reflexed, prominently veined, pubescent; corolla dull or creamy white, tube 12 mm long, pentagonal, narrowed above, hispid; lobes 5, 8 x 4 mm, oblong; stamens 16-20 in pairs, equal; anthers linear, acute; pistillode absent; female flowers; solitary, axillary; pedicel to 2 cm long; bracts larger than those of the male flowers; calyx glabrescent; staminodes 10; ovary superior, 4-celled, ovule 1 in each cell, tomentose; stigma 4, unequal. Fruit a berry, 3-4 x 2-3 cm, ovoid to obovoid, obtuse, obtusely 5-angled, yellowish-brown, puberulous; calyx 1.5 x 3 cm, saccate; seeds few, 2 x 0.8 cm.

Habit: Tree

Endemic to the Western Ghats- South and Central Sahyadris.

Maharashtra: Konkan Karnataka: N. Kanara, Shimoga Kerala: Idukki, Kannur, Kollam, Malapuram, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur Tamil Nadu: Coimbatore, Nilgiri