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Indian Boxwood
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Indian Boxwood
ative Photo: Shaista Ahmad
Common name: Indian Boxwood, Ceylon Boxwood • Hindi: पापड़ा Papda, papura, paphar • Marathi: ghogar, papda, dikemaali, gogavli • Tamil: periya kumpai, kumbay, kambil, kottumarikalan • Telugu: Pedda Karinga, karinguva, pedda bikki • Kannada: ಕಂಬಿ kambi, ಕಾಲ್ಕಂಬಿ kalkambi, ಅಡವಿಬಿಕ್ಕೆ adavibikke • Oriya: kurlu • Sanskrit: parpataki
Botanical name: Gardenia latifolia    Family: Rubiaceae (Coffee family)

Indian Boxwood is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, which is often growing on other small plants, which it eventually kills, the way Figs do. This gardening can be easily distinguished from the others by its large leaves. Bark is greenish-grey, peeling and leaving smooth, concave, rounded depressions. Oppositely arranged, or whorled leaves have very short stalks, and are oval to obovate, smooth, with a small hairy gland in the axils of the veins on the underside, 6-8 in long, by about 3 in broad. Flowers appear singly at the end of branches. Sepal cup is bell-shaped, segments or teeth very irregular. Flowers have salver-form, meaning starting from a narrow tube and suddenly flaring into a flat arrangement of petals. Flowers are white or pale lemon-yellow, orange when fading. Flower tube is about 2 inches long, with 5-9 obliquely obovate petals, about 1/2 as long as the tube. Stigma is club-shaped, thick, and fleshy, bipartite, segments bifid. Berry is even, nearly spherical, crowned with the whole limbs of the sepal. Flowering: April-July.

Identification credit: Navendu Pāgé Photographed in Lal Bagh, Bangalore & Khutpani, Jharkhand.

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