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Garcinia indica (Thouars) Choisy in DC.
Synonym
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Brindonia oxycarpa
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Family
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Clusiaceae
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Local name
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English- Goa-Butter
Malayalam- Punampuli
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Flowering and fruiting period
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November-August
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Distribution
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Western Ghats
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Distribution in Kerala
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Kasaragode, Wayanad, Idukki
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Habitat
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Cultivated
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Endemic/Exotic
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Endemic to western ghats
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Uses
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The most important health
benefits of Garcinia indica include
its ability to speed wound healing, prevent chronic disease, reduce allergic
reactions, optimize digestion, protect the skin, boost the immune system, relieve pain, and eliminate
inflammation.
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Key botanical characters:
Trees, to 15 m high, bole
buttressed, bark lpale brown, very thin, smooth, rather shiny; branchlets
drooping. young branches subterete, irregularly striate. Leaves simple,
opposite, decussate, estipulate; petiole 5-12 mm long, slender, glabrous;
lamina lanceolate or obovate-oblong, base attenuate, apex acute or acuminate,
margin entire, glabrous, shining, membranous; lateral nerves 7-18 pairs,
parallel, slender, prominent, intercostae reticulate. Flowers
polygamodioecious; male flowers: 4-8 in axillary and terminal fascicles;
pedicels 6 mm long; sepals 4, yellowish-orange to pinkish-orange, coriaceous,
ovate-rotundate, outer ones 3-4.5 mm long, petals 4, thick; stamens many,
inserted on a hemispheric subquardate torus; filaments short; anthers oblong,
truncate, loculi laterally introrse; rudimentary pistil absent or a few
equalling the stamens; female flowers: solitary, terminal; pedicels 3 mm
long; sepals and petals as in male flowers; staminodes 10-, 18, in 4 unequal,
2 to 3 seriate phalanges alternating with petals, 1-3 mm long; ovary
superior, 4-8 locular, subglobose; stigma 4-8 rayed, convex, coronate, rays
tuberculate, often 2-seriate. Fruit a berry, 4-8 loculed, purple or wine
brown, surrounded by persistent calyx; pulp red; seeds 5-8, compressed in
acidic pulp.
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