Harrisonia R.Br. ex A.Juss.

Thorny, erect or sprawling shrubs, rarely small trees, up to 12 m. Branches pithy, older ones glabrous, lenticellate; stipular thorns accrescent, conical, finally caducous, slightly recurved, up to 7 mm; annual shoots at the base with small persistent bud-scales and sometimes spines. Leaves imparipinnate or ternate; rachis narrowly winged; leaflets subentire to lobed, ± sessile, the apical one whether or not with a longer petiole than the lateral ones but without articulation, rhomboid to ovate-lanceolate, blunt. Flowers bisexual, 4-5-merous, in bracteate axillary cymes or terminal, rarely axillary thyrses. Calyx small, lobes acutish-triangular, about as long as the tube or longer. Petals much longer than the calyx, slightly imbricate in bud. Stamens attached at the base of the disk, twice as many as petals; filaments with an adnate 2-lobed or emarginate hairy ligule free at its top; anthers latrorse, cells diverging in lower half; filament attached between the cells. Ovary 4-5-celled, slightly lobed, seated on a rather thick disk; ovules 1 per cell, amphitropous, pendent from the adaxial side near the top; styles 4-5, connate or sometimes free at the very base; stigma knob-shaped, slightly 4-5-lobed. Drupe depressed-globose, sometimes ± lobed; exocarp fleshy or coriaceous; endocarp hard; fertile cells 2-5, each with a perforation of the hard endocarp at the base of the stylar canal. Seed with a thin testa, endosperm present; cotyledons horse-shoe-shaped, radicle pointing upwards.

The Malaysian spp. usually on dry, open, hot places, often on limestone rocks, under distinctly seasonal conditions, usually at low altitude, up to 700 m, locally sometimes extremely common in thickets, less common in open monsoon forests.

Uses. In some parts of Malaysia the shoots are used as a drug against diarrhoea. In the Philippines a decoction of the bark and roots is used against diarrhoea and dysentery, and apparently also against cholera ( HEYNE Nutt. Pl. 1927 871 BURK. Dict. 1935 1128 ).