ABDUL GHAFOOR

Dioecious, unarmed trees or large shrubs with milky latex. Leaves alternate or sometimes opposite, simple, entire or toothed, undivided or palmately 3(.5)-lobed, 3(-5) costate from the base; stipules lateral, membranous, caducous. Male inflorescence catkin-like, cylindrical spike. Male flowers: shortly pedicellate to sessile; sepals 4, united in the lower half, lobes valvate; saunas 4, inflexed in bud, explosive, pistillode minute. Female inflorescence axillary, pedunculate globose pseudo-heads. Female flowers: sepals united, 4-toothed; staminodes absent; ovary short, unilocular with pendulous ovule, enveloped by ovoid or cylindric calyx tube, styles filiform, unbranched, stigmatic nearly to the base. Fruit an orange-red, globose aggregate of thinly pulpy drupes partly invested by ± pulpy yellow to red calyces and bracts. Seeds ovoid-compressed, endospermous.

Species 7.8, distributed from India and Ceylon eastwards to Japan Polynesia. Represented in Pakistan by a single alien species.

Lower Taxon

• Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L’Herit. ex Vent.

Related Synonym(s):

• Morus papyrifera L. = Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L’Herit. ex Vent.