Diospyros racemosa

Diospyros racemosa Roxb., Fl. Ind. ed. 1832 2: 536 1832. (Syn: Diospyros foveoreticulata Merr.; Diospyros incisa Buch.-Ham. ex Wall. [Invalid]; Diospyros toposia Buch.-Ham.; Diospyros toposia var. toposioides (King & Gamble) Phengklai; Diospyros toposioides King & Gamble; Embryopteris racemosa (Roxb.) G.Don);

 

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Dioecious trees, to 20 m high, bark 5 m thick, greyish-brown, rather smooth, hardly peeling off; branchlets slender, glossy, drying pale brown, glabrous. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate; petiole 5-12 mm long, slender, flat above, glabrous; lamina 10-30 x 2-10 cm, elliptic, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, base acute or round, apex acuminate, glabrous, coriaceous, surfaces areolate-reticulate; lateral nerves 8-9 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent, intercostae reticulate, pellucid. Flowers unisexual, pale yellow; male flowers; 3-12 flowers in cymes, in the axils of cauducous bract or leaf; peduncle 8-12 mm long, slender, brown hairy; pedicel upto 5 mm long, slender, pilose, pilose; bract 2 mm long, hood-shaped; bracteole 1.5 mm, pilose; calyx rough but not hairy, quite entire when young at length, splitting irregularly at base; lobes acute, unequal; corolla yellow urceolate, with a very narrow throat; lobes 4, middle line pilose inside; stamens 20-30, in pairs of unequal length; filaments glabrous; pistillode none or a small disc; female flowers: usually solitary, axillary pedicel 6-10 mm, slender, with minute adpressed hairs, slightly enlarged towards apex; calyx deeply cut in to 4 tapered acute lobes, both sides seriaceous; corolla yellowish-white, urceolate to urceolate-tubular; lobes 4, triangular, acute; staminodes 12-16 in an epipetalous ring, short; ovary densely pubescent, 4-6-celled, ovules 1-in each cell; stigma short. Fruit a berry, ovoid-ellipsoid, top flattened, yellow covered with very short brown hairs, 2.5 x 2-4 cm; calyx 1.5-2.5 cm across, lobes triangular-ovate, 5-10 mm long, glabrescent.  

Semi-evergreen forests

(From India Biodiversity Portal 

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The tree is known as TOPOSI in Bangla.

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