Ixora brachiata Roxb. (RUBIACEAE)
Common name
Tulu: Koraji.
Description: Small trees, 10-12 m tall with smooth grey bark. Leaves elliptic, oblong or lanceolate, 8-15 x 3-7 cm, attenuated or narrowed at base, obtuse at apex, pale when dry, glabrous; petiole, ca 2 cm long. Flowers in 9-10 cm long terminal trichotomously branched corymbose cymes, white, scented. Calyx short, reduced to 4 minute lobes. Corolla lobes 4, white. Stamens 4, inserted at the mouth of corolla tube; filaments short. The ovary is 2-locular, and the style is adorned with long white hairs, culminating in a fusiform stigma. The fruit is a smooth, purplish-black, globose berry, measuring about 1 cm in diameter. It contains 2 seeds that are hemispherical and approximately 4-5 mm long.
Flowering & Fruiting: November – March.
Distribution: India: In the evergreen and semi-evergreen forests of Western Ghats to Travancore at low elevations. Endemic.
Uses: Fruits edible. The wood is hard and used as tool handles.