tejasvini :
Morphology:
- Timru is an evergreen, thorny shrub or small tree, attaining a height up to 6 m.
- Leaves are 4–20 cm long, imparipinnate, pungent, and aromatic with glabrous, narrowly winged petiole having two stipular prickles at the base.
- Leaflets are lanceolate, glabrous on the underside, and occur in two to six pairs.
- The plant can be recognized by its shrubby habit, dense foliage, with pungent aromatic taste, prickled trunk and branches, and small red, subglobose fruits.
- Flowers occur in dense terminal or sparse axillary panicles and are green to yellow in colour.
- Calyx consists of six to eight sub-acute lobes.
- Stamens are about six to eight in number. Ripe carpels or follicles are usually solitary, pale red, and tubercled.
- Seeds are globose, shining, and black.
- Flowering occurs from March to May, while fruiting occurs from July to August.
Histology:
-Fruit - Pericarp shows large oil cavities and vascular tissues surrounded by
parenchymatous cells containing irregular masses of hesperidin and followed by 2 to 5
layered palisade-like cells, hesperidin insoluble in organic solvents but soluble in
potassium hydroxide.
Seed - Testa shows wide, very thick-walled, irregular, non-lignified cells having
blackish-brown contents and numerous oil globules; tegmen shows 3 or 4 oval to
polygonal tangentially elongated thin-walled parenchymatous cells, followed by 8 to 10 layers tangentially elongated tabular cells filled with reddish-brown contents;
endosperm consists of thin-walled, polygonal, parenchymatous cells.
