Eurya acuminata - Edible Leaf Eurya

Edible Leaf Eurya is a small evergreen tree up to 12 m tall. Bole straight, or sometimes branched at base, bark reddish-brown, smooth or finely fissured. Twigs round, hairless or finely hairy. Leaves are simple, alternate and distichous, young leaves long silky woolly-hairy, narrow-oblong, lanceshaped, tip tapering, base pointed, margin finely toothed. Primary vein single, secondary veins blunt, looped at the margin, tertiary veins netveined. Leaf-stalks are hairy, round, stipules absent. Flowers are arranged in a 2-5-flowered inflorescence, in leaf-axils or along leafless twigs, unisexual, on the same tree. Flower-stalks are 2-3 mm, velvet-hairy. Male flowers: bracteoles round, about 1 mm; sepals 2-2.5 mm, somewhat leathery, outside velvet-hairy, tip blunt. Petals are oblong to ovate, 3.5-4 mm; stamens 15-20; anthers not locellate; pistillode hairless. Female flowers: bracteoles, sepals, and petals similar to those of male flowers but slightly smaller; ovary spherical, hairless, 3-loculed; style 2-3 mm, apically 3-5-lobed or parted. Fruit is a berry up to 0.6 cm in diameter, thinly fleshy, not splitting open. Seeds many. Edible Leaf Eurya is found in the Himalayas, from Kumaun to NE India, Western Ghats, Ceylon, at altitudes of 1300-2500 m. In NE India, the leaves are cooked with meat and eaten. Flowering: September-November.