Turraea pubescens Hell.

Deciduous shrub often of straggling habit, or, more rarely, a small tree to 6 m; trunk to 11 cm dbh. Bark silvery grey to reddish, sometimes with prominent lenticels; inner bark fawn, with sickly smell; sapwood creamy yellow. Leafy twigs 2–3 mm diam. Leaves 1.5–10(–17) by 1–6 cm, often not completely expanded at anthesis, ovate to oblong, subglabrous or sparsely hairy on veins to subvelutinous adaxially; apex obtuse to acuminate; base rounded to cuneate; major veins c. 5 or 6 on each side, acute, arcuate, very occasionally with tufts of hairs in their axils; petiole 5–9 mm. Inflorescences fascicles or condensed cymes of up to 6 sweetly scented flowers, sometimes produced on leafless branches; axis 2–5 mm long, pubescent; bracts 1–2 mm long, triangular, pubescent; pedicels 1.5–3 cm. Calyx 3–4 mm long, cupular, 5–lobed up to halfway dowr, pubescent. Petals 30–45 by 2.5–4 mm at widest, linear-spathulate, white becoming yellowish with age. Staminal tube 20–30 by c. 3 mm at widest, cylindrical to weakly obconical, white, margin subentire or, usually, with ten appendages sometimes divided apically into 2(–4) lobes, reflexed at anthesis; anthers 10, c. 1 mm long, at apex of tube, glabrous, yellow, filament very short. Ovary 5-locular, subglabrous; style c. 30–45 mm, long-exserted, ± pubescent in proximal region, stylehead expanded to form a ‘receptaculum pollinis’, surmounted by discoid stigmatic region pale yellow. Fruits up to 1.8 cm long, globose to subellipsoid, vermilion, 5-sutured, the 5 leathery valves reflexed at dehiscence starwise, 1–5 each bearing two seeds. Seeds c. 6 mm long, arillate; testa black, shiny; aril scarlet; endosperm slightly elongate.

Grows in semi-evergreen and deciduous forest, behind mangroves, on dunes and rocks of various origins, as well as in secondary vegetation at forest edge and savanna. 

UsesThe plant is of some slight medicinal value in India [see Wealth of India 10 1976 397 ]. There its pickled fruits are used as a dye. Corner (1.c.) notes that a reddish-purple coloration is imparted to potash solution in which seeds have been steeped.