Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Qjurious
Type:
Info
Chapter:
3-655.44.14
Hesperethusa crenulata
India: Thanaka.
Synonym: Limonia crenulata; Naringi crenulata.
Region: India, Bihar, Orissa.
Habitat: on dry hills or in dry jungles.
Content: 4-methoxy-1-methyl-2-quinolone(I).
Use: wood for cart axles; leaves, fruits, and roots for medicines; fruit as a condiment with fish, meat; ornamental because of its beautiful, feathery, green foliage; for facial cosmetic, soap.
Botany
Spinous, glabrous, small tree; crown compact or dense, not weeping; 7 to 10 m tall.
Stem: twigs glabrous when young, mottled when 2 or more years; thorns straight; prickles absent or not persistent; wood is hard, close-grained, light yellow.
Leaves: imparipinnate; petiole glabrous; medium or long; wings narrow, adjoining the blade; leaflets five to seven, margin crenate to crenulate or serrate to serrulate; rachis wings wide, shade leaflet blades flat or weakly conduplicate, sun leaflet blades flat or weakly conduplicate; conspicuously gland-dotted, sessile, ovate, emarginate, crenulate; terminal leaflet usually largest; rachis and petiole broadly winged, jointed; joints of rachis obovate; leaflets not scented when crushed.
Fruit: as broad as long or longer than broad; rind black; rind texture smooth; firmness membranous, navel absent, flesh red to purple.
Inflorescence: racemes, short, axillary, pubescent, subumbellate, few-flowered.
Flowers: 4 merous; calyx small, glandular, 4 ovate lobes; petals 4, fragrant, white, 6 mm long, elliptic; disk annular or stipitate; ovary 4-celled with 1 pendulous ovule in each cell; style short.
Fruit: globose; 6 mm in diameter, black when ripe; pedicels 2 cm long; seeded 1 to 4.
Literature
Bayer, R.J. & others; A molecular phylogeny of the orange subfamily (Rutaceae: Aurantioideae) using nine cpDNA sequences; American Journal of Botany 96, 668–685; 2009.
Cottin, R.; Citrus of the World: A citrus directory; France: SRA INRA-CIRAD; 2002.
Guillaumin, A.; Rutaceae;: Lecomte, H. Flore Générale de l'Indo-Chine 1: 629–687; 1911.
Haines, H.H. 1921. The botany of Bihard and Orissa, Part II. Adlard & Son, London, 224 pp. (Rutaceae, pp. 158–68)
Swingle, W.T.& P.C. Reece; The botany of Citrus and its wild relatives; In: Reuther, W., H.J. Webber, and L.D. Batchelor, The Citrus industry. Ed. 2. Vol. I; University of California, Riverside; 1967. http://lib.ucr.edu/agnic/webber/Vol1/Chapter3.html.
Talbot, W.A.; Forest flora of the Bombay Presidency and Sind; Printed for the Gov't., Poona, India, 184–206; 1909–11.