Antidesma menasu Muell.-Arg. (EUPHORBIACEAE)
Common names:
Kannada: Kadivala soppu
Description: The trees reach heights of up to 10 meters; their branchlets, petioles, and peduncles are densely covered in pubescence. Leaves alternate, elliptic-oblong, up to 20 x 7 cm, acute or slightly rounded at base, acuminate or rarely acute at apex, chartaceous, glabrous. Flowers in terminal or axillary racemes, dioecious. Perianth lobes 4, hairy, persistent. Male flowers distinctly pedicelled; stamen 3-4, rarely 5, inserted in hollows of disc. Female flowers shortly pedicelled. Ovary 1-loculed; ovules 2; style 2-3 lobed. Fruit a drupe, oblong, slightly oblique, up to 5×3 mm, turning red with age, tipped by persistent stigmas. Seed solitary.
Flowering: February
Fruiting: May – September
Distribution: India: In evergreen forests of the Western Ghats in all districts up to 2000 m.
Uses: Fruits are edible