• Family : ANNONACEAE
  (Custard-Apple Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : SITAPHAL FAMILY (सीताफल फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : ANNONACEAE
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Friesodielsia sahyadrica N.V.Page & S.Surveswaran (Not found in Plant List)
• Habit : Tree
• Comments / notes : The species is so far known only from the type locality. It seems to be restricted to evergreen forest between 80-125 m. It occurs in the understory, often climbing up along trunks of trees. It is sympatric with Desmos lawii, a closely related genus from the desmoid clade that exhibits similar habit and ecology but shows a much wider distribution.
• Key identification features : Scandent shrubs, often erect and spreading in absence of the host tree. Branches slender, terete, occasionally twining around the host plant, young parts brown-strigose, older glabrous and lenticellate. Leaves simple, alternate, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, broadest above the middle, base narrowed, slightly rounded. Secondary nerves 10-13 pairs, looping; tertiary nerves loosely percurrent; margin entire; upper surface glabrous, shining, lower glaucous white. Flowers axillary or extra-axillary, solitary; pedicel stout, 0.4-0.5 cm long, rufous-puberulous, with a minute ovate bract near the middle, bract ca. 0.2 x 0.1 cm; sepals three, green, valvate, 0.4-0.5 x 0.3-0.4 cm, puberulous outside, broadly ovate, lanceolate, connate at the base; petals six, in two whorls, yellow, valvate; outer whorl 0.8-1.0 x 0.5-0.7 cm, ovate-lanceolate, spreading, concave in the lower half, glabrous within, sparsely hairy on the outside; inner similar in shape, 0.6-0.8 x 0.4-0.5 cm, connivent along margins and vaulted over stamens and ovaries, opening only basally by narrow slits. Stamens numerous (ca. 35), 0.10-0.15 x 0.07-0.09 cm; connectives apically dilated, truncate. Ovaries oblong, densely strigose 0.10-0.11 x 0.08-0.09 cm; stigma glabrous, clavate. Monocarps oblong, cylindric, sessile, up to five seeded, tapering at both ends, slightly constricted between seeds, glabrous, 2.0-3.0 x 0.4-0.5 cm, scarlet when mature; seeds cylindrical.
• Collector(s) Name : Navendu Page
• Collection Nos : Page 110949
• Collection Locality : Kathlekan Reserve Forest, 110m (Uttara Karnataka)
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Shivamogga district, Uttara Kannada district
• Native : India
• Endemism : Western Ghats
• Conservation Status : Endangered (EN)
• Literature : Phytotaxa 158 (3): 275-282
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Friesodielsia sahyadrica. Downloaded on 20 May 2024.

Herbarium Specimen(s)

Field Image(s)