Scutia myrtina (Burm. f.) Kurz

Shrubs evergreen, scandent, straggling, or erect, to 5 m tall, spinescent; branches opposite to subopposite; young branches puberulent; older branches brown or red-brown, striate, glabrous. Spines mostly 2 per node, axillary, 2-7 mm, recurved. Leaves opposite or subopposite; elliptic, 3.5-6 × 1.8-3 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, conspicuously raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, base broadly cuneate, margin inconspicuously remotely minutely serrulate, apex shortly acuminate or acute; stipules lanceolate, 2-3 mm, early deciduous; petiole 3-5 mm, glabrous or puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially shiny, deep green, brown when dry. Flowers yellow-green, few in axillary fascicles or shortly pedunculate in axillary condensed cymes, glabrous. Pedicels 1-2 mm. Sepals (4 or) 5, narrowly triangular, ca. 2 mm, midvein distinctly keeled, apex acute and thickened. Petals (4 or)5, deeply emarginate to deeply bilobed, unguiculate, ca. 1 mm, both sides slightly inflexed, base shortly clawed. Stamens (4 or) 5, surrounded by and equaling petals. Disk glabrous, rather thin and inconspicuous. Ovary globose, base filling calyx tube, but not immersed in disk, 2- loculed; style short, ca. 1 mm, stout; stigma undivided or inconspicuously 2- or 3-lobed. Drupe obovoid-globose, 4-5 mm in diameter, often with rudimentary style at apex, base with persistent calyx tube, with 2 one-seeded stones; fruiting pedicel 3-4 mm, glabrous; seeds brown, flat, obcordate, not furrowed.

Habit: Straggling shrub

Habit: An armed straggler, to 5m.

Maharashtra: Kolhapur, Pune,Raigad,Satara, Sindhudurg

Very common along the forest borders, scrub jungles from plains to 1000m. Africa, Madagascar, Mascarene Islands, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Indo-China.