475

Myristica beddomei King

Family	:	Myristicaceae
Local name	:	English - Wild nutmeg Malayalam - Adakkapayin, Kattujathi
Flowering and fruiting period	:	December-May
Distribution	:	South India and Sri Lanka
Distribution in Kerala	:	Palakkad, Kollam, Idukki, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kannur, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Wayanad.
Habitat	:	Evergreen forests
Uses	:	The aril is used as a spice and has been used to treat ‘vata’, ‘kapha’ disorders, increase digestive power and prevent loose motion.
Key Botanical Characters:  Evergreen dioecious trees; up to 25 m high, bark surface blackish-green, smooth and exudation watery. Leaves  simple, alternate, distichous, oblong or elliptic-ovate, apex acute, base acute, round or rarely cuneate, margin entire, glabrous, shining above and glaucous beneath, coriaceous.  Flowers unisexual, white; male flowers 10-20 together in short axillary dense clusters. Perianth thin, fleshy, rusty tomentose, connate into an urceolate tube, constricted above, suddenly expanded, breaking into 3 ovate, spreading acute lobes. Staminal column narrow to oblong, ferrugineous, included, produced beyond the anther; anthers 7-15, linear-oblong. Female flowers as in male, generally 3-4 in the heads; ovary superior, sessile, ovoid-globose, appressed pubescent, 1-celled, ovule 1; stigma oblique, 2-lobed. Fruit a capsule, ovoid, apiculate, grooved on one side along the suture, pericarp rufous pubescent when young, thick, succulent; seed one, ovoid; aril orange red, encircling the seed, deeply cut down into many lobes, each lanceolate at the apex into filiform segments.