Diospyros buxifolia (Blume) Hiern

Habit: Tree

Dioecious trees, to 30 m high, bole buttressed; bark 5-6 mm thick, blackish-grey, mottled with white, brittle; blaze reddish-brown; branchlets densely golden yellow hairy. Leaves simple, alternate, bifarious, estipulate; petiole 2-3 mm, slender, hispid; lamina 1-4.5 x 0.6-2 cm, elliptic-ovate, ovate, ovate-oblong or ovate-lanceolate, base acute or cuneate, apex acute, margin entire, coriaceous, glabrous above except midrib and pubescent beneath; lateral nerves 2-3 pairs, pinnate, faint, intercostae obscure. Flowers unisexual, white; male flowers: 2-3 mm, 1-4 together in subsessile small axillary cymes; calyx densely fulvous-hairy outside; lobes 4, broadly outside; corolla campanulate, tube 0.1-0.15 cm long; lobes 4, orbicular, apiculate with a line of hairs on the back; stamens 16, in pairs, united by their filaments at base; anthers ovate, dehiscence by apical pores; pistillodes minute, hairy; female flowers: 7-8 mm, solitary, subsessile; calyx and corolla as in males; staminodes absent; ovary superior, ovoid, pubescent, 4-celled, ovule 1 in each cell; style short 2 partite. Fruit a berry, 15-18 x 10-12 mm, oblong, pointed, purple, glabrous; seeds 1-2, endosperm equable.

Maharashtra: Ratnagiri Karnataka: Hassan, Mysore, N. Kanara, Shimoga, S. Kanara Kerala: Idukki, Kollam, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur Tamil Nadu: Coimbatore

Indomalaysia; in the Western Ghats- common trees in forests of Central and North Malanad in Central Sahyadri; also found in openings in South Sahyadri.