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Aporosa cardiosperma (Gaertn.) Merr.

Synonym: Croton cardiospermus Gaertn., Aporosa lindleyana (Wight) Baill.

EUPHORBIACEAE

Local Names: വെട്ടി, വെട്ടിപ്പഴം, Lindley's Aporosa.

Flowering Period : December to June

Distribution : Peninsular India and Sri Lanka

Uses: Fruit edible, Ayurvedic.

Exotic : Yes.

Evergreen trees with greyish-brown bark having shallow vertical striations. Leaves are simple, attenuate, bifarious, elliptic-oblong and margin entire, glabrous. Male flowers: yellow, solitary or clustered in axillary spikes. Tepals 4, ovate, stamens 2-3, from the centre of the flower; filaments free; anthers  didymous. Female flowers: pale green, 3-8 together, in densely tomentose small racemes; tepals 4, larger than males; ovary superior, flask-shaped 2-celled, ovules 2 in each cell; stigmas 2, small, Fruit a capsule, globose and yellow.