Bark
Bark 10-14 mm thick, reddish-brown, fissured, blackish-green, smooth; sap watery, red; branchlets hairless.
Myristica beddomei
Syn. Myristica contorta
IUCN Red List
Least Concern
(LC)
Local name
- Bitter Nutmeg (English)
- Jatiphala (Sanskrit)
Tree type
Evergreen
Deciduous
Family: Myristicaceae
25m
Indicated uses
Medicinal
Edible
Ornamental
Avenue
Other
Flowering & fruiting
Flowering
Fruiting
Key characters
Leaves
Leaves are simple, alternate, grooved above, hairless; oblong or elliptic-ovate, base pointed, round or rarely wedge-shaped, tip pointed, margin entire, hairless, shining above and glaucous beneath, leathery.
Flower
Flowers are unisexual, yellowish-white; male flowers 10-20 together in short in leaf-axils dense clusters. Female flowers as in male, only few generally 3-4 in the heads; ovary superior, stalkless, ovoid-spherical, appressed velvet-hairy.
Fruit / Seeds
Fruit is a capsule, 5-7.5 x 3.7-6 cm, ovoid, apiculate, grooved on one side along the suture, pericarp rufous hairy when young, thick, fleshy; seed one, ovoid; aril orange red.
Did you know?
Its seed-to-width ratio is the lowest in its regional group, making the seeds physically too bulky for most canopy birds to swallow.
Distribution
SW. India