Bridelia retusa

Bridelia retusa (L.) A. Juss.

Family       : Euphorbiaceae

Common Name : മുള്ളുവേങ്ങ (Mal)

: काझी(Hin)

: Spinous Kino(Eng)

IUCN Status : Least concern (LC)

Spinous Kino Tree is identified by rigid leathery leaves with straight parallel lateral veins and strong spines on the bark of young stems. It is a drought hardy species, produces root-suckers and a good coppicer. Leaf-blade is elliptic-oblong to elliptic-oblanceolate, tip somewhat pointed, sometimes blunt, base is rounded or roundly wedge-shaped, margin entire or wavy, thinly leathery, lateral nerves 15-20 pairs. Flowers are arranged in axillary fascicles and also in fascicles on leafless branches appearing as spikes. The fascicles are either unisexual or bisexual; axes densely puberulous; bracts small, acute; flowers stalked. Fruit is globose, fleshy sweetish drupe, about the size of a pea, purple-black, seated on a hard enlarged calyx. 1 or 2 seeds with fairly thick bony shells. 

Deciduous trees, to 20 m high, young trees armed with sharp thorns; branchlets thinly hairy. Leaves simple, alternate, 5-22 x 3-11 cm, broadly elliptic, oblong, elliptic-oblong, obovate or obovate-oblong, apex obtuse retuse or subacute, base round, obtuse, truncate, cordate or acute, margin entire or slightly crenulate, glabrous above, glaucous and usually finely tomentose beneath; lateral nerves 14-25 pairs, parallel, prominent, dichotomously forked near the margin, intercostae scalariform, prominent; petiole 9-15 mm long, stout, pubescent when young; stipules 7 mm long, lateral, lanceolate, deciduous. Flowers unisexual; greenish-yellow, sessile or shortly pedicellate, crowded in dense axillary or terminal, sometimes paniculate spikes; bracts scaly. Male flowers: 7 mm across, tepals 10, biseriate, valvate; outer tepals 3 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, thick, truncate, shortly connate, acute, inner ones 2 mm, obovate, cuneate, obtuse, fimbriate; stamens 5, monadelphous, born on a gonophore, exserted; filaments 0.7 mm; pistillode bifurcate; disc annular. Female flowers: 6.5 mm across, tepals 10, biseriate, lanceolate, valvate; outer and inner 2.5 and 1.5 mm long, coriaceous, puberulous without, truncate, shortly connate, fimbriate, acute; ovary half inferior, globose, 2 x 1 mm, 2-locular, ovules 2 in each cell; styles 2, forked, 2 mm; stigmatiferous; disc with an inner, membranous, fimbriate corona enclosing basal part of ovary. Fruit a drupe, 7-8 mm across, purplish-black, seated on the persistent, slightly enlarged calyx, pyrenes 2, epicarp crustaceous; seed one in each pyrene.

Use: The plant is pungent, bitter, heating, useful in lumbago, hemiplegia; bark is good for the removal of urinary concretions (Ayurveda). Root and bark are valuable astringents. The bark is used as a liniment with gingelly oil in rheumatism.

Distribution : Indo-Malaya

Flowering & Fruiting : August-December