''Myristica dactyloides'' is a species of

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

in the family

Myristicaceae The Myristicaceae are a family of flowering plants native to Africa, Asia, Pacific islands, and the Americas and has been recognized by most taxonomists. It is sometimes called the "nutmeg family", after its most famous member, '' Myristica fragr ...

. It is endemic to

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. The species was earlier thought to occur in India because two subspecies of the related '' Myristica beddomei'' found in India, namely ''M. b. beddomei'' and ''M. b. ustulata,'' were wrongly identified as ''M. dactyloides'' Gaertn. in many herbarium specimens and regional floras. Taxonomy ''Myristica dactyloides'' differs from the Indian taxon ''M. beddomei'' in leaf and flower characteristics. The former has broadly lanceolate to broadly elliptic leaves with obtuse base, being brownish with indistinct veins on the underside. The male flowers have caducous bracteoles and the male flower buds are distinctly ellipsoid with pointed apex. Some sources have it as a synonym of '' Myristica malabarica''. Myristica dactyloides 14

References

dactyloides Conservation dependent plants Endemic flora of Sri Lanka Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Myristicaceae-stub