Sorindeia
(said to be the native name in Madagascar). ORD. Anacardiaceae. A genus comprising about half-a-dozen species of small, stove, glabrous trees, natives of tropical Africa, Java, and Madagascar. Flowers purple or yellow, small; calyx cup-shaped, five-toothed; petals five, rarely more, valvate; stamens in hermaphrodite flowers, five, in males ten to twenty; panicles terminal, branched, bracteate, sparse-flowered. Drupes compressed, one-seeded. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate; leaflets entire. S. madagascariensis is the only species introduced. Its fruits have been described as "of a pleasant, sweet-sour, mango taste, but acrid also. These groups grow in a remarkable and interesting way, not only from the branches, but chiefly from the main trunk of the tree, looking as if they were air-roots with fruit upon them, or like parasites. There may be 200 of the tempting fruits hanging in great bunches, 2ft. in length." For culture, see Anacardium.
S. madagascariensis (Madagascar). fl. purple, small, in axillary racemes. May. l. on woody petioles. h. 10ft. Madagascar, 1828.