Common Name : Indian Boxwood, Ceylon Boxwood

Indian Boxwood is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, which is often growing on other small plants, which it eventually kills, the way Figs do. Bark is greenish-grey, peeling and leaving smooth, concave, rounded depressions. Oppositely arranged, or whorled leaves have very short stalks, and are oval to obovate, smooth, with a small hairy gland in the axils of the veins on the underside, 6-8 in long, by about 3 in broad. Flowers appear singly at the end of branches. Sepal cup is bell-shaped, segments or teeth very irregular. Flowers have salver-form, meaning starting from a narrow tube and suddenly flaring into a flat arrangement of petals. Flowers are white or pale lemon-yellow, orange when fading. Flower tube is about 2 inches long, with 5-9 obliquely obovate petals, about 1/2 as long as the tube. Stigma is club-shaped, thick, and fleshy, bipartite, segments bifid. Berry is even, nearly spherical, crowned with the whole limbs of the sepal. Flowering: April-July. Fruit is an indehiscent berry with seeds placed in pulp inside; the birds are the most likely seed dispersal agents when they break the pericarp and feed on the fruit pulp.