Morinda latibractea is a tall shrub or small tree 3-5 m tall. Leaves are broadly elliptic to oval shaped 8-15 x 3-5, with pointed tips.
The leaves are smooth except for small tufts of hairs surrounding domatia (compartments which house resident mites or other tiny insects) in the axils of the leaf veins. The white, tubular true flowers are only 5 mm across, but large, attractive expanded white calyces (calycophylls) are much more conspicuous. Flowers grow in dense heads of 4 to 12. The fruit is round and bumpy like a miniature noni fruit, but only about 1 cm across and fleshy. When ripe, it has several seeds and turns soft and white with a foetid smell.
(Engl. Jahrb. lxiii. 321. 1930)
|
NEWS
