Common name: Velvety Beauty Berry, French-Mulberry of Western Ghats • Hindi: प्रियंगू Priyangu, Bastra • Marathi: कनफुलिया Kan-phulia, ऐसर Aesar • Tamil: Seembakkulthu • Malayalam: Thinperivelam Vennthekku • Kannada: Ardri
Botanical name: Callicarpa macrophylla Family: Verbenaceae (Verbena family) Synonyms: Callicarpa incana, Callicarpa tomentosa
Urn-Fruit Beauty Berry is
an evergreen large shrub or small tree with densely hairy parts. Leaves simple
opposite. Eye-catching flowers in a terminal cymes, with four purple petals.
Oppositely arranged leaves, 10-25 cm long, 5-7.5 cm broad, are
ovate-lanceshaped to oblong-lanceshaped, sharp tipped, toothed, dark-green
and smooth above, pale or dull and densely woolly below. Leaf stalks are 10-15
mm long. Fruit is a red, globose berry. Seed one each in a
locule (4 locules) This plant is commonly seen at the edges of wet deciduous
and evergreen forests of the ghats. Native of peninsular India. Extends upto
Srilanka too.
Identification credit: Pravin Kawale
| Photographed in Maharashtra. |
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