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Briedelia
retusa (L.) A. Juss.
Synonym : Clutia retusa L.
Family
: Euphorbiaceae
Local Names
: Mulluvenga, Spinous kino tree
Flowering
and fruiting period:
August – December
Distribution: Indo-Malaya
Habitat: Semi-evergreen and
deciduous forests, also in the plains
IUCN
status:
Data Deficient
Endemic:
Yes
Uses: Ayurvedic, drought
tolerant. The plant is pungent, bitter, heating, useful in lumbago, hemiplegia;
bark is good for the removal of urinary concretions (Ayurveda). Root and bark
are valuable astringents. The bark is used as a liniment with gingelly oil in
rheumatism. The ripe fruit is edible.
Key
Characters:
Briedelia retusa are deciduous trees bark greyish-brown; young trees armed with
sharp thorns. Leaves simple, alternate, broadly elliptic, oblong, base round,
margin entire, bright green and glabrous. Flowers unisexual; greenish-yellow,
sessile, crowded in dense axillary or terminal. Male
flowers: tepals 10, biseriate, valvate; stamens 5, monadelphous, anthers
oblong; pistillode bifurcate; disc annular. Female flowers: tepals 10,
biseriate, lanceolate, valvate; ovary
half inferior, globose, 2-locular, ovules 2 in each cell; styles 2. Fruit a
drupe, purplish-black.