Shrub up to 4 m tall, profusely branched; branches glabrous, hori¬zontally spreading, modified into stem spines; spines up to 6 cm long. Leaves sessile to subsessile, 1.5-2.5 cm long, 2-3 mm broad, linear, entire, obtuse. Flowers greenish-yellow, pedicel 7-13 mm long; bracts 2-6, subulate, 2 mm long, inner surface woolly; bracteoles 2, subulate, 2-3 mm long, margin glandular. Sepals orbicular to oblong, 5 mm long, base sparsely villous on the inside, margin glandular. Petals 4-5 mm long, oblong-ovate, with a hairy claw. Disc soft, glabrous, depressed in the centre. Stamens unequal; filaments 5-7 mm long; base villous; anthers oblong, c. 2 mm long; staminodes present in the female flower. Ovary sessile, sub-globose, 2 mm long, glabrous; style 1 mm long; stigma 3-fid; pistillode present in the male flower. Capsule inflated, 2.5-3 cm long, 3 cm broad, 3-locular, I seed in each locule, reddish-pink in colour. Seed 6-7 mm long, brown to black in colour.
Fl. Per.: April-May.
Type: Upper Baluchistan: Galangon, 5000 ft., Stocks (K).
Distribution: Iran, Afghanistan and W. Pakistan.
The plant is not common here, and is restricted to the dry inner valleys of Baluchistan.
Besides these Litchi chinensis Sonner. is being cultivated in parts of Pakistan for the sake of its fruit, Leechee, which is a 1-seeded nut with a fleshy, edible aril and a tubercled, leathery pericarp.
