Actinodaphne tadulingamii Gamble

Trees, to 7 m high, bark grey mottled with green, lenticellate; blaze creamy yellow with sclerotic streaks; branches rusty tomentose. Leaves simple, 3-5 in a whorl, opposite or subopposite, estipulate; petiole 10-20 mm long, stout, tomentose; lamina 8-24 x 2.5-7.5 cm, elliptic-lanceolate, base cuneate-attenuate, apex acuminate, margin entire, glabrate above and fulvous villous beneath, subcoriaceous; lateral nerves 10-15 pairs, pinnate, prominent, ascending at an angle of 300-400 from midrib, intercostae scalariform, prominent. Flowers unisexual, in lateral umbels or short subracemes; peduncle 4-5 mm long, pubescent; pedicels 0.5-0.6 cm long, pubescent; bracts orbicular, fulvous villous; perianth tubular, campanulate and about ca. 5 mm across in males, cupular and about 5-7 mm across in females, lobes 6; stamens 9, in 3 rows, filaments 2-glandular; staminodes 9, in 3 rows, fulvous, first and third row linear and 2-glandular; ovary half inferior, globose, sunk in perianth, 0.1-0.15 cm across, fulvous-villous, stigma dilated. Fruit a berry 8-10 mm across, ovoid, black; perianth tube cup shaped; pedicel 1 cm long.

Habit: Tree

Endemic to the Western Ghats- occasional in South and Central Sahyadris.

Kerala: Idukki, Kannur, Malapuram, Palakkad,Thiruvananthapuram Tamil Nadu: Coimbatore, Kanniyakumari, Nilgiri, Tirunelveli