Pandanus L. f., Suppl. 64. 1781. Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 6: 483. 1894; Cooke, Fl. Pres. Bomb. 3:323. 1907; Stone in Said. & Nicols., Fl. Hass. Distr. Karn. Ind. 777. 1976; Stone in Dass. & Forsb., Fl. Cey. 3:300. 1981.
SAOOD OMER
Erect shrubs or small trees of terrestial, semiaquatic or epiphytic habitat; stems simple or branched (sometimes very short), or procumbent and rooting. Leaves arranged terminally in spirals, linear-ensiform or lanceolate, margin and midrib spinous, sheathing at base. Inflorescence axillary or terminal. Flowers always unisexual. Male flowers in a spadix with number of white or yellowish green spathes; filaments smooth; anther oblong-linear, apex apiculate. Female flowers enveloped by leafy spathes; staminode absent; ovaries uni-docular, free or in phalanges, ovule solitary; stigma sessile or style partly developed; stigma variously shaped (round, deltiod, linear etc.), forked, dentate or spiny. Fruiting head an aggregate of fibrous, woody drupes or phalanges. Seeds target large, albuminous.
Exclusively an Old World genus of 600-700 amiss, distributed in the tropics (West Africa, Madagascar, Pakistan, India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Philippines-Japan, Thailand, China), Micronesia, Polynesia, New Guinea, Australia, New Caledonia and Hawaii. In Pakistan represented by a single Cultivated species.
