|
Bitungol is a small tree which can grow up to 5-15 meters tall. The trunk and old branches are usually crooked, furrowed and branched near the base. The young stem and branches are with strong, woody, simple or branched spines, up to 10 cm long.
The bitungol leaves are ovate-oblong or elliptic to oblong-lance-shaped, measuring 10-15 cm x 4-7 cm, hairless or hairy on the midrib and nerves, often shiny dark green above, brownish-red and drooping when young and with coarsely-toothed margins. The petiole is 5-8 mm long.
The inflorescences are in few-flowered, short, axillary and finely hairy racemes. The pedicels are 3-4 mm long. The flowers are greenish-yellow and usually unisexual. There are 4 sepals, but rarely 3-6, while petals are absent. The male flowers are with 8 orange or yellow-white fleshy disk-lobes and numerous stamens. The female flowers are usually without stamens, with 4-6(-8) styles, free and indistinctly bilobed stigmas.
The fruit is spherical, depressed-spherical to obovate berry, 2-2.5 cm in diameter, light-green to pink or purplish-green to dark red, with whitish, juicy, acid pulp and crowned by the 4-6 small peg-like styles set in a circle. There are 4-7 seeds and flat.
|
