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<big>''[[Phyllanthus reticulatus]]'' Poiret</big>
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:Protologue: Lamk, Encycl. Méth. Bot. 5: 298 (1804).
== Synonyms ==
*''Phyllanthus multiflorus'' Willd. (1805), *''Kirganelia reticulata'' (Poiret) Baillon (1858).
== Vernacular names ==
== Botany ==
*A monoecious scandent shrub or small bushy tree, up to 5 m tall (in Africa rarely up to 18 m tall); trunk up to 15 cm in diameter, bark rough, brown to grey, branchlets slender. *Leaves differently shaped; spirally arranged scale-like, ca. 1.5 mm long on the orthotropic shoots; plagiotropic shoots with normally developed, distichous, elliptic to (ob)ovate leaves, 1-3(-5) cm × 0.5-2(-2.5) cm, entire, cuneate to rounded at base, obtuse to emarginate at apex, glabrous and shortly petiolate. *Flowers in few-flowered fascicles or solitary in leaf axils, unisexual, often a single female flower and some male flowers together, sometimes arranged on leafless shoots and those then seemingly long racemes, with 5(-6) perianth lobes and 5(-6) disk glands; male flowers with 5(-6) stamens; female flowers with a superior subglobose ovary, crowned by 2-lobed styles. *Fruit a depressed-globose berry, up to 7 mm in diameter, usually blueish-black when ripe with dark purplish pulp, 6-many-seeded. *Seeds trigonous, up to 2 mm long, blackish.
''P. reticulatus'' generally flowers throughout the year. The indumentum of leaves, stems and flowers is variable, from glabrous to densely pubescent. In Africa, 2 varieties have been distinguished: var. ''reticulatus'' with pubescent flowering shoots and sometimes also leaves and stems, and var. ''glaber'' (Thwaites) Muell. Arg. with all parts glabrous.
== Literature ==
* Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink, R.C., 1963. Flora of Java. Vol. 1. Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. p. 467.
* Dalziel, J.M., 1936. The useful plants of West Tropical Africa. Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations, London. p. 158.
* Sastri, B.N. (Editor), 1959. The wealth of India. Raw materials. Vol. 5. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi. pp. 320-321.
== Authors ==
