Diospyros montana Roxb.

Dioecious trees, to 20 m high, bark smooth, grey or yellowish-grey; blaze turmeric yellow; exudation scanty, watery; bole and branches with long hard, stiff, divaricate spines formed from stumps of branches; branchlets slender, glabrous, only those of the flush sparsely minutely pilose. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate; petiole 5-10 mm, slender, grooved above, glabrous; lamina 4-10 x 2-4 cm, ovate, ovate-oblong, elliptic-oblong, base round, obtuse, subcordate or acute, apex obtuse, subacute or obtusely acuminate, margin entire, chartaceous, more or less softly pubescent when young, glabrous at maturity; lateral nerves 5-10 pairs, pinnate, slender, faint, intercostae reticulate, faint. Flowers unisexual, white; male flowers : 2-6 in axillary umbels; peduncle to 5 mm; calyx 3 mm long; lobes 4, ovate, imbricate, thick, margin ciliate, obtuse; corolla 6-7 mm long, greenish-yellow, urceolate, glabrous; lobes 4, ovate, imbricate, 2.5 mm long, subacute; stamens 16, roughly in 8 pairs, unequal; anthers lanceolate, awned; pistillode conical, pointed; female flowers: solitary, axillary; pedicel to 4 mm; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes 4, 5 mm, linear-lanceolate; ovary superior, 0.7 mm across, globose, glabrous, 8-celled, ovule one in each cell; styles 4, 1.5 mm long; stigma capitate; Fruit a berry, 1.5-2 cm across, ovoid to obconical, yellow to orange, glaucous; calyx foliaceous, slightly enlarged, foliaceous, reflexed; seeds 3-6, rough, black; endosperm equable.

Habit: Tree

Maharashtra: Nasik, Pune, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Satara, Thane Karnataka: Belgaum, Chikmagalur, Coorg, Dharwar, Hassan, Mysore, N. Kanara, Shimoga Kerala: Idukki, Kollam, Palakkad, Thrissur Tamil Nadu: Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Nilgiri, Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, Tiruchchirappalli, Tiruvannamalai, Salem, Vellore, Viluppuram