Blackberry

Black berry

Scientific name: Syzygium cumini L.

English names: Black Plum, Black Berry, Jambolan,Java Plum.

Local name: ‘Kala-jam’

Taxonomic Position According to Cronquist (1981)

Botanical Description of Blackberry

Habit:A large, semi-evergreen tree, up to 35 in tall and 4 m girth, bark surface light grey or brown, all parts glabrous. Twigs slender, terete, creamy.

Stem Anatomy

Leaves:Leaves opposite, superposed, petioled, variable in size and shape, lamina pale yellowish-green, 6-17 x 3-9 cm, elliptic-oblong, elliptic-lanceolate, ovate or ovate-oblong, coriaceous, smooth, shining, margin distinctly undulate, base cuneate, apex acuminate, acute or subobtuse, lateral nerves close, numerous, very fine, subequal, intramarginal nerve straight, tertiaries densely reticulate, midrib slender, elevated beneath, shallowly channelled above, petioles 8-20 mm long, slender, channelled above.

Flower:Flowers whitish, sessile, 6-12 mm across. Calyx tube 2.5-5.0 mm long, turbinate, limb truncate or obscurely 4-lobed. Petals united into a thin membranous calyptra, c 2 x 3 mm, fugacious.

Androecium: Stamens numerous,  5 mm long, anthers up to 0.5 mm long, fixed near the base. Gynoecium:Ovary 2-locular, each with more thaii 1 ovule, styles up to 10 mm long.

Fruit:Fruit a berry, variable in shape and size,  3×2 cm, usually ovoid, oblong or globose, often somewhat curved, black, juicy and shining when thoroughly ripe, crowned by a  2 mm diameter more or less prominent calyx rim.

Source Facebook F Karim

Seed:Seed usually 1 and capsule in shape.

Economic Importance: Fruits are edible. The bark is acrid and sweet, digestive,astringent to the bowels, anthelmintic, good for sore throat, bronchitis, asthma, thirst, biliousness,dysentery, blood impurities, ulcers, the fresh juice of the bark is given with goat’s milk in diarrhoea of children, the juice of leaves is a useful remedy for  dysentery with blood discharges.