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Taxonomy
Bridelia micrantha (Hochst.) Baill.
Nomenclature
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Family: PhyllanthaceaeGenus: Bridelia
SUMMARY
An evergreen or deciduous, often much-branched, small tree up to 20 m high with a dense spreading crown and ± flattened or pendent branches arising from c. 2 m above ground. Trunk and branches with scattered blunt thorns. Bark smooth and pale grey or pinkish-brown on branches, rough and dark grey or brown at base of trunk. Wood hard, white.Twigs dark grey or brown, lenticellate. Young shoots and petioles evenly to sparingly pubescent or subglabrous. Petioles 5–13 mm long. Stipules 4–7 mm long, linear-lanceolate, acute, puberulous or pubescent. Leaf blades 3–28 × 1.5–12 cm, elliptic to elliptic-oblong, shortly obtusely acuminate, rounded to cuneate at the base, subentire or very shallowly crenate, thinly coriaceous, sparingly pubescent to subglabrous along the midrib and main nerves above and beneath and otherwise ± glabrous above and minutely sparingly appressed-puberulous beneath, carmine-orange in young flush, dark or bright green and shiny above and paler below, with the nerves often pale yellow when mature, often drying greenish-grey above and light brown beneath; lateral nerves in 5–20 pairs, craspedodromous, slightly prominent above and beneath or somewhat more so beneath, tertiary nerves parallel or subparallel, not prominent. Male flowers: pedicels 1 mm long, sparingly appressed-puberulous; sepals 2 × 1 mm, triangular-ovate, acute, appressed-puberulous without, glabrous within, greenish; petals 0.5 × 0.5 mm, obtriangular, apically tridentate, greenish-white; disk 2 mm in diameter, shallowly 5-lobed, ± flat, fleshy, glabrous; staminal column 1 mm high; filaments 0.5 mm long, narrowing apically; anthers 0.75 mm long, yellow; pistillode 0.5 mm tall, ± conical, shallowly lobed at the apex. Female flowers faintly scented, subsessile or shortly stoutly pedicellate; sepals triangular, pale grey-green, otherwise ± as in the male; petals 1 × 0.5 mm, elliptic, subentire; outer disk 1.5 mm in diameter, pentagonal; inner disk 3-lobed, the lobes erose at the apex, closely enfolding the ovary, reddish-brown; ovary c. 0.75 × 0.75 mm, ovoid-subglobose, 2–3-celled; styles 2–3, c. 0.75 mm long, ± free, bifid, stigmas smooth.Fruit 6–8 × 4–5 mm when dried, slightly larger when fresh, ellipsoid or occasionally subglobose, 1-locular by abortion, green at first, black when ripe. Seeds 5 × 3 mm, smooth, slightly shiny, brown.
Source: http://plants.jstor.org/flora/fz6804.