The Wood is pale red, in transverse section darker. The sapwood is white. In transverse section the rings show clearly as white bands in the red ground, the pores are small and single and the rays extremely fine, invisible to the naked eye. In vertical section the pores are fine, the grain indistinct. The wood is fairly hard, saws well and planes readily without picking up, to a smooth finish which will polish. A good sound wood with occasional knots.
The Leaves are about 1½ inches long and ¾ inch broad, are alternate and assume one plane with the upper surface outwards. They are dark, shiny green above, with whitish venation, and thickly covered with a grey pubescence beneath. The veins are palmate, three spreading from the base, raised beneath. The margins are very finely serrate.
The Flowers are in small axillary bunches and are downy, greenish, with a flat, 5-pointed calyx, 5 minute petals, and 5 minute stamens and a bifid stigma. The clusters are not so numerous or large as those of the other species. They appear about January.
The Fruits are small, reddish drupes about ½ inch in diameter, with a crisp, whitish flesh, which is sweet and edible, and a stone which is very large for the size of the fruit. The fruit is smaller and drier, and the stone rounder and larger in comparison with it, than those of the other species, Z. Spina-Christi. It ripens about December.
Uses.—The fruits are eaten fresh.
ZIZYPHUS MUCRONATA Willd.—Magariyar kura. RHAMNACEAE.
This species is a small, irregular-shaped tree not, as a rule, above 20 feet in height with a girth of 2-3 feet. It is quite commonly met with as a shrub-like plant, some 10-12 feet high with straggling branches forming a tangle. There may be two or three stems springing at ground level from a common stock. The crown is open and uneven, and the long drooping branches extend to within a few feet of the ground.
The Bark is grey, with long, coarse fissures and rough scales.