Bruguiera cylindrica (L.) Bl.

Habit: Shrub or small tree

Trees, to 6 m high; occasionally buttressed; under ground roots producing numerous knee roots; bark grey, cracked, lenticellate; branchlets terete, glabrous, with conspicuous, narrow, stipular scars. Leaves simple, opposite, decussate, stipulate; stipules inter petiolar, to 3.5 cm long, golden yellow; petiole 10-30 mm long, terete, glabrous, stout, grooved above; lamina 4-13 x 2-5.5 cm, elliptic or oblanceolate, base cuneate, apex acute, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous, bronze-green coloured above, pale green beneath; lateral nerve 6-9 pairs, parallel, slender, looped near the margin, secondary lateral numerous, obscure, intercostae reticulate, obscure. flowers bisexual, greenish-white, 1.6 x 0.9-1.2 cm, in axillary cymes, usually of 3-flowered, rarely branched with upto 6 flower; peduncle 0.8-0.5 cm long, terete, glabrous; flowers usually sessile, rarely middle flowers pedicellate; calyx tube, campanulate, smooth, glabrous, greenish-white; lobes 6-9, each 5 mm long, narrow, thick, fleshy, glabrous; petals 6-9, 3.5 mm long, free, white, apically bilobed, with a long bristle in the sinus of the lobes, lobes equal, tip more or less round with 3 or 4 cilia on each, margin densely hairy in the lower half and at the base except the stalk; stamens 10, in pairs of unequal length, filaments 2-2.5 mm long, terete, anthers basifixed, mucronate; ovary half inferior, inserted and fused with the calyx cup, 2-celled, ovules 2 in each, pendulous; style 6 mm long, filiform; stigma bifid. Fruit a drupe, 1.5 cm long, reddish-green, calyx lobes reflexed; seed one; hypotyle 10-16 x 6 mm, cylindric, surface slightly ridged, green with brownish tinge.

Maharashtra: Raigad, Sindhudurg, Thane