Garuga Roxb.

Scientific Description

Family Burseraceae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; deciduous; bearing essential oils (in the bark); resinous. Leaves cauline. Stem internodes solid. Leaves alternate (crowded at branch ends); spiral, or distichous; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted; aromatic (resinous); compound; pinnate; imparipinnate. Leaflets elliptic, or oblong to ovate; cordate to cuneate at the base, or attenuate to the base, or oblique at the base. Leaves with stipules. Stipules oblong; caducous. Leaf blade margins entire, or crenate, or serrate (or irregular). Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present (or glabrescent). Extra-floral nectaries absent. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in panicles (pedunculate). Inflorescences terminal, or axillary; inflorescence near the ends of branchlets, appearing before the leaves. Flowers pedicellate; bracteate; ebracteolate; small; regular; 3–5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic, or pentacyclic. Free hypanthium present; broadly urceolate. Hypogynous disk present, or absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 5; 1 -whorled; polysepalous; imbricate, or valvate; regular. Sepals ovate to triangular. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; alternating with the calyx; polypetalous; valvate (induplicate-valvate); regular; white, or cream, or yellow (pale). Petals ovate, or oblong to linear. Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 10. Androecial members free of the perianth; markedly unequal; free of one another; 1 -whorled, or 2 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 10; didynamous (slightly); all more or less similar in shape; diplostemonous, or isomerous with the perianth; at top of the floral tube alternating with the disc lobes, or above the middle of the calyx tube. Anthers dorsifixed; versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate; appendaged, or unappendaged. Fertile gynoecium present, or absent (in male flowers). Gynoecium (2–)3–5 carpelled. The pistil 3 celled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth to isomerous with the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 3 locular; stipitate. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1; 5 - lobed. Placentation axile. Ovules 2 per locule; pendulous; epitropous; with ventral raphe (micropyle superior); non-arillate; hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy (edible); indehiscent; a drupe, or a capsule; 1–5 celled; 1–5 seeded. Seeds non-endospermic (or almost so). Cotyledons 2.

Etymology. Name of G. pinnata in Telugu, the language of the Coromandel coast of India.