FoI
Nilgiri Rudraksh
Share Foto info
Nilgiri Rudraksh
ative Photo: S. Jeevith
Common name: Nilgiri Rudraksh • Malayalam: Rudraksham, Cholarudralksham
Botanical name: Elaeocarpus recurvatus    Family: Elaeocarpaceae (Rudraksh family)

Nilgiri Rudraksh is a tree up to 13 m tall, with bole buttressed; young branches and leaves covered with rusty velvety hairs. Leaves are simple, alternate, clustered at the tip of branchlets, stipules free, lateral, falling off. Leaf-stalks are 1.5-5 cm, stout, woolly. Leaf blade is 7.5-15 x 4-8 cm, ovate or ovate-oblong, folded back, boat shaped, base pointed or wedge-shaped, tip pointed or caudate, margin rounded toothed or sawtoothed, hairless above except downy midrib, softly velvet-hairy beneath, leathery, lateral nerves 6-10 pairs, pinnate, prominent, veins dividing dichotomously towards the margin. Flowers are bisexual, white, in short racemes in leaf-axils, up to 7 cm. Sepals are 5, lanceshaped, velvet-hairy; petals 5, 1.2 cm long, broadly ovate, sparsely within, inserted round the base of glandular disc; stamens numerous, inserted between the glands on the disc; anthers ending in straight bristle; ovary superior, subspherical, densely silky outside, 3-celled, ovules 2 in each cell; style subulate, entire. Fruit is a drupe, ovoid; stone single, compressed, coarsely tubercled, 1.8 x 1 cm, seed one. Nilgiri Rudraksh is endemic to Southern Western Ghats.

Identification credit: S. Jeevith Photographed in The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu.

• Is this flower misidentified? If yes,