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In this article we will discuss about the structure of Michelia Champaca (Champa) with the help of a diagram.
Habit and Habitat:
A tall, graceful, ever-green tree with dark-grey bark; cultivated, flowering mainly during April-June.
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Root:
Tap root; branched.
Stem:
Aerial, erect, branched, woody, solid.
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Leaf:
Ramal; alternate; stipulate, stipules convolute, petiolate, simple, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, entire with acute apex; coriaceous, glabrous, dark green, reticulate unicostate.
Inflorescence:
Clusters of axillary flowers.
Flower:
Bracteate, pedicellate, pedicel short, ebracteolate, complete, regular, actinomorphic; hermaphrodite, hypogynous, spirocyclic, pale-yellow, very fragrant, large.
Perianth:
Usually nine tepals, 3 whorls of 3 each; either all the 3 whorls petalloid or sometimes the outermost of 3 tepals becomes sepaloid than calyx and corolla and described a§ under.
Calyx:
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Three; free; greenish; valvate, inferior.
Corolla:
Six, in two whorls of three each; choripetalous (free), those of the outer whorls valvate whereas those of the inner whorl narrow and twisted, pale yellow; fragment, inferior.
Androecium:
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Indefinite, polyandrous, spirally arranged, distinguished into filament, connective and anther lobes, dithecous, basifixed, dehiscence longitudinal, extrorse.
Gynoecium:
Polycarpellary, apocarpous; superior; spirally arranged on a cone like and elongated thalamus; each carpel with a swollen ovary, curved style and beaked and simple stigma, unilocular; placentation marginal, many ovules in each carpel.
Fruit:
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An etaerio of follicles, dark coloured with white specks.
Seed:
Large; endospermic, endosperm copious; embryo small.
Pollination:
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Entomophilous.
