849

Nothopegia beddomei Gamble

Family	:	Anacardiaceae
Local name	:	Malayalam–Cheru
Flowering and fruiting period	:	April-June
Distribution	:	South India and Sri Lanka
Distribution in kerala	:	Wayanad, Idukki, Pathanamthitta,
Habitat	:	Evergreen forests and semi-evergreen forests
Uses	:	The fruit is edible
Key botanical characters : Trees, to 15 m high, grey-brown, mottled with white and green, smooth, brittle; exudation scanty, white. Leaves simple, alternate,  elliptic or elliptic-oblong, acute at both ends, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; petiole slender, glabrous, grooved above.Flowers small, in axillary racemes, some times subterminal. Calyx small, 4-lobed, margins ciliate with many dark longitudinal swellings on ventral surface, persistent, imbricate. Petals 4, oblong, glabrous, spreading, imbricate; disc annular, 4-lobed. Fruit a drupe, fleshy, ovoid, blue; pericarp thick filled with black resin cells; seed pendulous.