Apologies; I have made an erroneous identification.



The Avicennia species that I identified as marina in above picture, is A. officinalis.

Yesterday, I purchased few books on flora - one of them: "Trees of Mumbai" (Authors: Marselin Almeida & Naresh Chaturvedi) where it states that A. officinalis has ovate or egg-shaped leaves, blunt at apex and its stamens exceeding its petals in length.

I made searches on internet again to find that the A. marina flowers are cup-shaped while A. officinalis are more like saucer; the former are about half the latter's size.

Both the species are commonly known by same names in many languages.

Tabish, I want to know your thoughts.

The issue is complex. Let me first comment on the leaves.

First, your pictures: To me, they look elliptic, obtuse (blunt), leathery. They can't be called ovate - the base is not wider than the upper part. They could also be oblong - I wish more leaves were visible clearly.

A.marina:
1. Leaves of A. marina exhibit a lot of variation depending on the salinity of the environment. In areas with low salinities, leaves are lanceolate, with a pointed apex and are on average 15 cm long. In an extremely saline environment, leaves are more elliptical with a rounded apex ; they are more leathery and are very small (2cm length in extreme conditions).
http://student.vub.ac.be/~dagillik/mangrove/a_marina.htm

2. Leaves opposite, ovate, lanceolate to elliptical, 3.5–12 cm long, 1.5–5 cm wide, mostly acute at both ends, entire, thick leathery, shiny green and hairless upper surface, pale whitish-gray and finely hairy underneath.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Avicennia_marina.html#Descrïption

Your picture doesn't contradict the above two descrïptions.

A. officinalis
Leaves 2 to 3 inch long, oblong, obtuse, leathery.
http://www.herbdatanz.com/mangrove_picture_monograph.htm

I could not find more descrïptions. However, the pictures I found, seem to show rather spoon shaped leaves.

I would say your specimen could be A. officinalis, but could also be A. marina, if I look only at the leaves.

Now if I look at flowers:
"corolla tubular, white.turning yellow or orange with 4 nearly equal, short lobes" for A. marina, doesn't quite agree with ur specimen. The lobes are not short, they make up the most of the flower.
One the other hand, the pics of A. officinalis that I could find, agree very nicely with ur specimen. The "cross-like formation" of the inflorescence, is perfectly reproduced in ur pic.

So, I vote for A. officinalis! And yes, the pic on page 39 of FoS seems to be that of A. officinalis.

Tabish,

Thank you very much for your clear opinion.


Here is the best picture I have of a leaf seen closest:



Regards,
Dinesh.