ODINA WODIER. (Nat. ord. Anacardiacese.) 



OD1NA. Boxb.— GEN. CHAR. Flowers polygamous. Calyx 4-5 fid or partite ; segments ovate or roundish. Petals as many, imbricate. 

 Disk small, aunular or saucer-shaped. Male flowers, stamens 8 or 10, inserted under the margin of the disk; anthers versatile or subversatile. Rudiment of 

 ovary usually 4 fid. Fertile flowers, anthers smaller often effete. Ovary sessile, free, glabrous or hairy, 1 celled. Styles 4 or 3, short, distinct, rather stout ; 

 stigmas terminal. Ovule solitary, pendulous. Drupe oblong or ellipsoidal, compressed. Embryo with flat fleshy cotyledons. Trees or shrubs. Leaves 

 alternate, deciduous, unequally pinnate, usually collected at the extremities or in lateral tufts from nodes of a previous year ; leaflets opposite, entire. 

 Flowers racemose, often fasciculate, shortly pedicellate or subsessile. Roxb. Fl. Ind. ii. 293. Lannea, Quill, and Pen: Fl. Seneg. 1. 153, 



ODINA WODIER. (Roxb.) A large tree, trunk of no great height to the branches, but thick and tolerably straight, bark 

 pretty smooth ash colored, branches numerous, the lower spreading the upper ones disposed in every direction generally leafless at the 

 time of flowering, leaves alternate about the ends of the branchlets unequally pinnate 10 to 18 inches long, leaflets about 5 opposite pair 

 (with an odd one) on the upper half of the common petiole ; sessile or subsessile ovate to oblong often oblique at the base entire with 

 a longish blunt acumination, when young more or less covered with white stellate wool at length quite glabrous, 2-5 inches long by 

 1-2 inches broad ; inflorescence terminal the male on long filiform panicled spikes, the fertile on short racemes both covered with 

 stellate rather scaly pubescence, flowers tetramerous very small, male and fertile on the same tree or on different trees, calyx slightly 

 hairy, in the male there are 8 fertile stamens on long filameuts inserted under the 8-9 lobed disk, in the centre of which is the rudiment 

 of an ovary terminating in a style with a star-like 4 cleft apex, in the female there are 8 sterile anthers on short filaments a large 

 ovary crowned with 4 short stout distinct styles, stigmas more or less 2 cleft, drupe kidney-form smooth, red when ripe, the size of a 

 small olive. 



This tree is common in most of our jungles aad is found in Bengal, Bombay and Ceylon, and is also abundant everywhere in this 

 Presidency in a planted stale, particularly as an avenue tree, but the cultivated trees are generally grown from cuttings and are gnarled ugly 

 specimens ; it is the worst possible avenue tree as it is bare of leaves for several months in the driest and hottest time of the year ; it is called 

 Gumpini and Dumpini in Teligu, Wodier and Wv.de in Tamil, Shimtee and Poonil in Canare*e, and Hig or Hok in Ceylon, it seldom ascends the 

 mountains to any elevation, but is found all over the Mysore plateau at 3,000 feet; the outer wood is white and worthless, bvt the heart wood of good 

 seedling trees which is of a deep reddish mahogany, is useful for many purposes and would be excellent for cabinet purposes and furniture, the tree 

 is lopped for fodder and a gum exudes from the trunk which is used medicinally by the natives, being given in asthma and as a cordial and 

 used as a plaster and also in cloth printing, the tree inhabits Birmah, where it is called Nabhay and the timber is in use for sheaths of swords, 

 spear handles, oil presses and rice pounders, and a closely allied species is found in tropical Africa. 



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