tikshnaksha :

Plants growing in a herbal garden in southern India Photograph by: Thamizhpparithi Maari

Morphology:

It is an evergreen climber (woody Liana) with rambling stems up to 15 m high and 10 cm diameter. Bark of the plant is pale brown, fairly smooth with numerous conspicuous pale circular lenticels, armed with small hooked prickles about 2.5 mm long raised on old stems on the top of a conical woody pedestal up to 1.2 cm high. Blaze 2.5-7.5 mm crisp, pale yellow closely mottled with sclerotic orange portions in the outer half, turning pinkish brown on exposure. Leaves are alternate, digitately trifoliate. Petiole 1.5-3 cm long. Leaflets sessile, 5-10 cm x 1.8-3.8 cm, obovate- oblong or oblong, crenulate, shortly blunt-acuminate, base acute, glabrous, criaceous, dark shining green above with many slender parallel nerves. Inflorescences with male flowers corymbose panicles, with female flowers cymose panicles, bract scale like. Flowers polygamous, 3.8-6 mm diameter, pale greenish yellow, in axillary and terminal pubescent panicles, 2.5-6.3 cm long. Stamens 4 or 5, ovary 4 or 5 locular. Fruit orange to dark red, 7.5-12mm. diameter, subglobose, with 5 shallow grooves, yellowish, seeds dark brown, several reniform, surrounded by colorless mucilage

Histology:

T.S of leaf consists of single layers of upper and lower epidermis covered with thin cuticle. Mesophyll is differentiated in to upper palisade and lower spongy cells. Palisade consists of compactly arranged cylindrical cells and filled with chloroplast. Oil glands are observed on both surfaces . Midrib shows well developed vascular bundle. Unicellular and thick walled trichomes were present on midrib. Anisocytic stomata were present on dorsal surface of the leaf , Stomata index was 29.

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