Commiphora madagascariensis Jacq

Botanical name : Commiphora madagascariensis Jacq

Family : Burseraceae

Synonyms :

Balsamea agallocha Baill., Balsamea roxburghii Engl., Balsamodendrum agallocha Wight & Arn.

Balsamodendrum commiphora Royle, Balsamodendrum roxburghii Arn.,

Commiphora agallocha Engl., Commiphora roxburghii Alston,, Amyris agallocha Roxb.

Amyris commiphora Roxb

Morphology :

Shrub or small tree up to c. 5 m. tall; bark smooth (dark brown, grey-brown or green-brown); branches often spiny, glabrous. Leaves 1-foliolate or 3-foliolate with 2 much smaller lateral leaflets; petiole very short (c. 1 mm. long) or considerably longer (up to 1·5 cm.), glabrous except for a minute tuft of hairs at the articulation just below the base of the sessile leaflet; leaflet-lamina up to 4 (6) × 1·5 (3) cm., elliptic or narrowly obovate-spathulate, apex acute or obtuse, margins finely crenate-serrate, base cuneate, glabrous on both sides. Flowers appearing before the leaves or with the young leaves in subsessile clusters on short side-shoots or spines. Calyx c. 2 mm. long, tubular, lobed to 1/3–1/2-way, glabrous. Petals c. 4 mm. long. Disk-lobes 4. Stamen-filaments slender, subterete. Fruit c. 1·2 × 0·6 cm., ellipsoid, somewhat flattened, glabrous, apex somewhat apiculate; pseudaril with (3) 4 arms; endocarp c. 7 × 5 mm., smooth, with one face rather deeply convex and one shallowly convex.

Distribution & Habitat :

A species of lakeshore thicket or in the undergrowth of forest patches.

Widely distributed in tropical Africa north of our area, also in India.

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