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Nilgiri Cheesewood
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Nilgiri Cheesewood
E Native Photo: Dinesh Valke
Common name: Nilgiri Cheesewood • Kannada: Kuhi-maavu, Kuyimavu • Malayalam: Analivenga
Botanical name: Pittosporum neelgherrense    Family: Pittosporaceae (Pittosporum family)

Nilgiri Cheesewood is a small tree up to 5 m tall. Branchlets are slender, round, hairless, warty. Leaves are simple, alternate, spiral, usually crowded at tip; leaf-stalk 0.5-1.2 cm long, channeled, hairless; blade 2.5-10 x 1.3-5 cm, elliptic or obovate, tip pointed or somewhat tapering, sometimes blunt, base pointed, margin entire to crenulate; papery or thinly leathery, hairless. Midrib is channeled; secondary nerves 5-8 pairs thin, branched. Flowers are borne in few flowered racemes. Flowers are yellow, carried on stalks up to 1 cm long. Fruit is obliquely 2-valved, about 1 cm across; flower-stalk thread-like; seeds 4-8. Nilgiri Cheesewood is found in Southern Western Ghats.
Medicinal uses: The bark, about 5 mm thick, is dull brown on the outside and creamy white on the inside. When cut, the bark emits an intense, foul smell. Members of Malappandaram community that inhabits the evergreen forests of Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, utilize this bark as an antidote to snake poison.

Identification credit: Rajeev Kumar Singh Photographed in Kōdamūlal, Tamil Nadu.

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