Journal of
Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2018 | 10(10):
12434–12438
An
extended distribution record of Western Ghats species Litsea
oleoides (Meissn.) from Matheran, Maharashtra, India
Radha Veach 1 & Gurumurthi Hegde 2
1 GSP P.O., Ganeshpuri,
Thane District, Mahatrashtra 401206, India
2 Omni Active Health Technologies Ltd., International Biotechnology
Park, Hinjewadi, Phase-II, Pune, Maharashtra 411057,
India
1radhaveach@gmail.com, 2gurooji290384@gmail.com
(corresponding author)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3328.10.10.12434-12438
Editor: M.K. Vasudeva Rao, Retd. Joint Director,
BSI-Pune, India. Date of
publication: 26 September 2018 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms # 3328 |
Received 06 February 2017 | Final received 08 September 2018 | Finally accepted
12 September 2018
Citation: Veach, R. & G. Hegde (2018). An extended distribution record
of Western Ghats species Litsea oleoides (Meissn.) Hook.f. (Lauraceae) from Matheran,
Maharashtra, India. Journal of Threatened
Taxa 10(10): 12434–12438; https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3328.10.10.12434-12438
Copyright: © Veach & Hegde 2018. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT
allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and
distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of
publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We thank Dr. Robi Jose for his valuable inputs on the identity of this
tree and its distribution. Many thanks to Navendu Page for sharing
his knowledge and observations from the start of our exploration.
In the
course of floristic explorations in the hill station, Matheran,
in Raigad District of Maharashtra, we collected an
interesting specimen of a Litsea species. After critical examination and comparing our specimens with
all available collections in various herbaria including Kew, the specimen was
identified to be Litsea oleoides
(Meissn.)
Litsea oleoides
(Meissn.) Hook.f., Fl. Brit. India 5: 175. 1886; Gamble, Fl. Pres. Madras 2:
1236. 1925; V. Chandras. in A.N. Henry et al., Fl. Tamil Nadu 2: 211. 1987; Matthew, K.M. Illustrations on the Flora of the Palni Hills, southern India. 616. 1996; Sasidh., Biodiv.
Doc. Kerala - Fl. Pl. 399. 2004; Udayan
et al. Indian Forester 130 (5): 551–564. 2004; Bhuinya et al., Bangladesh J. Plant Taxon. 17(2): 183–191. 2010; Rajeev Kumar Singh
et al. Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy 22(2): 77–81. 2015. Tetranthera oleoides Prodr. 15(1): 195 1864.
Specimen
examined: Phytocare Herbarium, Piramal
Enterprises Limited, 20130725(1), 29.vi.2013, Maharashtra, Raigad, Matheran (in fruit),
750m, coll. Gurumurthi Hegde
& Radha Veach.
Other
specimens: The Herbarium at Center for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian
Institute of Science Bengaluru JCB 0291, 15.iii.2015, Karnataka, Kemmannugundi, Bababudengiri, Muthodi, Bhadra forest 13.5300N
& 75.7850E, 1,375m, coll. Srinivas S.G & Y.L Krishnamurthy; Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew (KEW) K000357533, (date unknown) iv.1846, Kerala, Sispara ( as Chispaurey) s.d., R. Wight.
Medium
to large canopy trees 10–30 m tall, girth up to 3.82m; young bark smooth, lenticellate, green, turning greyish-brown or grey; older
trunks buttressed with the bark exfoliating in longitudinal patches; branchlets green or yellowish-green, glabrous or
glabrescent. Leaves sub-opposite to alternate; blade elliptic or
elliptic-oblong or oblong (when young), up to 12–26 x 7–14 cm, apex short and
bluntly acuminate, base cuneate, margin entire,
sub-coriaceous, glabrous on both surfaces, dark green above, much paler and
whitish beneath; new foliage pinkish-red turning to copper; petiole 1.5–3 cm
long, glabrous; midrib shallowly sunken or flattened above, raised beneath,
secondary veins 12–15 pairs, slightly prominent above, raised beneath, curving
or curving and looping near margin, tertiary veins reticulate, indistinct on
both surfaces; prominent leaf galls on lower epidermis bursting stellately.
Inflorescences on umbel-bearing reduced branchlets
with the appearance of racemes of umbels, in axils of leaves or along branchlets, racemes of umbels 2–4 cm long; umbels 0.5–1 cm
in diam.; peduncles 0.6–1.2 cm long, glabrous; bracts 4, decussate,
sub-orbicular, broadly ovate, concave, 3.5–7 by 3–5 mm, membranous, with veins,
two outer ones glabrescent, two inner ones glabrous. Male flowers 3–6 in
each umbel; tepals 5, ovate-lanceolate,
3–3.5 by 2–3 mm, membranous, pubescent inside; pedicels 1–2 mm long, glabrous;
stamens 8–11, unequal; anthers 1.5–2 mm long; filaments 1.5–2 mm long, villous,
2 glands at base or some without glands; pistillode
1–1.5 mm long, glabrous. Female flowers
not seen. Fruits globose, 1.2-1.6 cm in diam., appressed
at the top, pale green with faint white dots, turning dark cherry-pink and
later dark red when ripe, glabrous, glossy; enlarged perianth
tube obconical, glabrous; fruiting pedicels 0.3–0.7
cm long, glabrous; infructescence stalks 0.3–1 cm
long, glabrous.
Flowering:
September–October. Fruiting: April–June.
Phenology:
Tight buds appear in early August and remain almost unchanged in appearance for
a whole month. The buds are swollen by mid-September and single flowers bloom
randomly all over the tree. By early
October half of the total buds are open and within a week the tree is in full bloom. Flowering terminates by late October, and if
heavy rains do not persist dried flowers remain on the tree until January. Green juvenile fruits are formed in the first
week of March. They mature slowly and
remain green faintly speckled with white through April. By early May the fruits ripen to pink and
fall. Meanwhile many
immature fruits are knocked down by impatient monkeys. Large numbers of Bonnet Macaque Macaca radiata
collect ripe fruits, eat the fleshy portion and discard the seeds, thus assisting
in their dispersal. Though frugivory by birds is common in the Lauraceous tree
species, we did not observe birds feeding on the fruit. Lack of ornithochory
may be the cause for the present discontinuous distribution of this
species. Seeds germinate beneath the
parent trees. Seedlings at the 2-leaf and 4-leaf stages were observed in
August. Of all 10 individual mature
trees located in the slopes harbouring evergreen
forest we saw an abundance of saplings ranging from 6–8 m tall with girths of
10–30 cm. The leaves of the saplings are
much larger than those of the canopy trees.
Though the tree is recorded as having opposite leaves in some locations,
lower altitude plants have alternate leaves (Jose Robi
pers. comm. 13 March 2014). The
abundance of smaller seedlings in the vicinity of the parent trees indicates a
good regeneration of the taxon locally.
Distributional
notes: The tree is a known endemic to Kerala, Tamil Nadu (Nayar et al. 2006) and Karnataka (Udayan
et al. 2004) states of southern India.
Its northernmost distribution recorded to date is Kemmanagundi
in Karnataka (Srinivas & Krishnamurthy
2016). The present collection site, Matheran, in the northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra is
about 700km further north. Matheran’s elevation is about 759m making it a new lower
elevation record for Litsea oleoides. It is usually found in wet evergreen forests
of 800–1300 m range.
Matheran is an
isolated forested plateau west of the Ghats escarpment. It shelters a pocket of evergreen forest which has become isolated in the geological past
leading to the present extremely discontinued distribution of the species. While the top of hill is a
large lateritic plateau, deep ravines around it are covered by relatively small
patches of evergreen forest of the type Memecylon-Syzigium-Actinodaphne
(Puri et al. 1983).
This forest type is quite unlike others in which Litsea
oleoides commonly occurs. It is a common canopy tree or emergent in the
type Cullenia exarillata
- Mesua ferrea - Palaquium ellipticum (Pascal
et al. 2004).
In Matheran, the population of Litsea oleoides is found in conjunction with other evergreen species including Diospyros sylvatica Roxb., Beilschmiedia dalzellii Cryptocarya wightiana Ficus nervosa Garcinia talbotii , Mangifera indica L., Persea macrantha Sageraea laurina and Syzygium spp. The ground layer of the forest includes Ancistrocladus heyneanus Mallotus resinosus and Dimorphocalyx glabellus var. lawianus
All the
mature individuals of Litsea oleiodes existing at Matheran
are of a great height, making detailed observation difficult. This may be a reason why the presence of the
species has been unrecorded until now.
With the present collection of Litsea
oleoides, Matheran is
the northernmost distribution limit for this species. Also, the presence of this southern evergreen
endemic confirms the remnant legacy of an evergreen flora of Matheran.
References
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