Toddalia asiatica (L.) Lam.

Habit

Shrub

Family Description

Trees or shrubs, rarely herbs; leaves, flowers and fruits usually bearing numerous oil glands. Leaves opposite or alternate, simple or compound, exstipulate. Monoecious or dioecious; flowers actinomorphic, unisexual or bisexual, in axillary or terminal racemes, corymbs or panicles, sometimes solitary. Calyx 4-5-lobed. Petals 4-5, free, valvate or limbricate. Stamens 4-5 or 8-10 or more (Aegle and Citrus); filaments free or connate; in female flowers stamens reduced to staminodes. Ovary superior, of 4-5 or more free or connate carpels; in male flowers ovary reduced to pistillode. Fruit a capsule, cluster of follicles, berry or drupe; seeds solitary or few in each cell.

Genus Description

Scrambling shrubs; stems often armed with curved spines. Leaves palmately 3-foliolate. Flowers unisexual, axillary; male flowers paniculate; female flowers racemose, 5-merous. Fruits broadly ovoid, 3-6-grooved, orange coloured.

Species description

Shoots brownish puberrulous; spines 2mm. Leaflets elliptic or oblanceolate, 3.5-10 x 2-3.5cm, acute or acuminate, base cuneate ± sessile, margin crenate or serrulate, glabrous; petiloe 2.5-4.5cm. Calyx 1mm. Petals greenish, 3.5mm, caducous in female flowers. Stamens slightly longer than petals, arranged aroungd shorter pistillode. Ovary ovoid, 3mm, surrounded by staminodes 1mm. Fruit broadly ovoid, 0.75-1cm, ± acute, orange coloured.