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Cockspur Thorn
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Cockspur Thorn
ative Photo: Navendu Pāgé
Common name: Cockspur Thorn • Nepali: डमरू Damaru
Botanical name: Maclura cochinchinensis    Family: Moraceae (Mulberry family)
Synonyms: Vanieria cochinchinensis, Cudrania javanensis, Cudrania cochinchinensis

Cockspur Thorn is a climbing shrub with hairless branches and curved or straight spines, up to 2 cm long. Leaf stalk is about 1 cm long. Leaves are elliptic-lanceshaped to oblong, 3-8 cm long, 2-2.5 cm wide, papery to leathery. Male inflorescences is a head, 6-10 mm in diameter, carried on a stalk. Female inflorescences are velvety, on a stalk up to 1 cm. Male flowers have 4 unequal sepals, and short anthers. Pistillode is pyramidal or shield-shaped. Female flowers have free sepals or basally joined. The fruit is a compound, irregularly-shaped berry as large as a small custard apple, formed of the enlarged fleshy flowers, each enclosing a one-seeded nut. The fruit is edible and of a pleasant taste, 2-5 cm in diameter, velvety. Flowering: April-May.

Identification credit: Navendu Pāgé Photographed in Dehradoon, Uttarakhand.

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