Trees of Lalbagh - Bangalore - RA - Madhuca Longifolia var. longifolia - South Indian Mahua Tree

[raman]

South Indian Mahua is a variety of Mahua which is predominently found in South India. It differs from the usual Mahua in that its leaves are narrower. Mohua is one of the most important of Indian forest trees, not because it may possess valuable timber - and it is hardly ever cut for this purpose - but because of its delicious and nutritive flowers. It is a tree of abundant growth and, to the people of Central India, it provides their most important article of food as the flowers can be stored almost indefinitely. It is large and deciduous with a thick, grey bark, vertically cracked and wrinkled. Most of the leaves fall from February to April, and during that time the musky-scented flowers appear. They hang in close bunches of a dozen or so from the end of the gnarled, grey branchlets. The reddish young leaves with the flower clusters look very attractive. The flower stalks are green or pink and furry, about 5 cm. long. The plum-coloured calyx is also furry and divides into four or five lobes; within them lies the globular corolla, thick, juicy and creamy white. Through small eyelet holes at the top, the yellow anthers can be seen. The stamens are very short and adhere to the inner surface of the corolla; the pistil is a long, protruding green tongue. It is at night that the tree blooms and at dawn each short-lived flower falls to the ground. A couple of months after the flowering period the fruit opens. They are fleshy, green berries, quite large and containing from one to four shiny, brown seeds.

Raman

[Balkar Singh]

Nice Shots Raman Ji

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:36 AM, raman <raman_ar...@yahoo.com> wrote:

South Indian Mahua is a variety of Mahua which is predominently found in South India. It differs from the usual Mahua in that its leaves are narrower. Mohua is one of the most important of Indian forest trees, not because it may possess valuable timber - and it is hardly ever cut for this purpose - but because of its delicious and nutritive flowers. It is a tree of abundant growth and, to the people of Central India, it provides their most important article of food as the flowers can be stored almost indefinitely. It is large and deciduous with a thick, grey bark, vertically cracked and wrinkled. Most of the leaves fall from February to April, and during that time the musky-scented flowers appear. They hang in close bunches of a dozen or so from the end of the gnarled, grey branchlets. The reddish young leaves with the flower clusters look very attractive. The flower stalks are green or pink and furry, about 5 cm. long. The plum-coloured calyx is also furry and divides into four or five lobes; within them lies the globular corolla, thick, juicy and creamy white. Through small eyelet holes at the top, the yellow anthers can be seen. The stamens are very short and adhere to the inner surface of the corolla; the pistil is a long, protruding green tongue. It is at night that the tree blooms and at dawn each short-lived flower falls to the ground. A couple of months after the flowering period the fruit opens. They are fleshy, green berries, quite large and containing from one to four shiny, brown seeds.

Raman

--
Regards

Dr Balkar Singh
Head, Deptt. of Botany and Biotechnology
Arya P G College, Panipat
Haryana-132103
09416262964

[Gurcharan Singh]

Good photographs Raman ji

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

[Satish Phadke]

Frankly speaking the picture of the leaves shown here and those in another thread posted by you indicate the opposite ID.
My belief
The ratio of breadth to length(Of a leaf) is more in Madhuca longifolia var.latifolia.(Say 50%)
(That's why it is called as latifolia)Broader leaves
The ratio of breadth to length(Of a leaf) is less in Madhuca longifolia var.longifolia(Say 40%or less)...South Indian Mahua
(That's why it is called as longifolia)Longer than broader but often overall smaller than the other one.)
Of course as said earlier the main differentiating key is anthers in series 3 or 2 respectively.

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:36 AM, raman <raman_ar...@yahoo.com> wrote:

South Indian Mahua is a variety of Mahua which is predominently found in South India. It differs from the usual Mahua in that its leaves are narrower. Mohua is one of the most important of Indian forest trees, not because it may possess valuable timber - and it is hardly ever cut for this purpose - but because of its delicious and nutritive flowers. It is a tree of abundant growth and, to the people of Central India, it provides their most important article of food as the flowers can be stored almost indefinitely. It is large and deciduous with a thick, grey bark, vertically cracked and wrinkled. Most of the leaves fall from February to April, and during that time the musky-scented flowers appear. They hang in close bunches of a dozen or so from the end of the gnarled, grey branchlets. The reddish young leaves with the flower clusters look very attractive. The flower stalks are green or pink and furry, about 5 cm. long. The plum-coloured calyx is also furry and divides into four or five lobes; within them lies the globular corolla, thick, juicy and creamy white. Through small eyelet holes at the top, the yellow anthers can be seen. The stamens are very short and adhere to the inner surface of the corolla; the pistil is a long, protruding green tongue. It is at night that the tree blooms and at dawn each short-lived flower falls to the ground. A couple of months after the flowering period the fruit opens. They are fleshy, green berries, quite large and containing from one to four shiny, brown seeds.

Raman

--
Dr Satish Phadke

[Neil Soares]

Hi,  Agree with Dr.Phadke. This is Madhuca longifolia var. latifolia.                        With regards,                          Neil Soares. --- On Sat, 2/18/12, raman <raman_ar...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[raman]

Thanks Neil ji.

I have named it based on the boards in Lalbagh.

I will double check it again. I was also confused by looking at Pradip Kishen' book.

I wanted to clarify it.

Raman

[raman]

thanks sathish ji 

for the information

I will rename it.

Wanted to confirm with this

Raman