fruit of Bangladesh and the state fruit of Kerala. Botanical description Shape, trunk and leaves Artocarpus heterophyllus grows as an evergreen tree that has a relatively short trunk and dense treetop. It easily reaches heights of and trunk diameters of . It sometimes forms buttress roots. The bark of the jackfruit tree is reddish-brown and smooth. In the event of injury to the bark, a milky sap is released. The leaves are alternate and spirally arranged. They are gummy and thick and are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The petiole is long. The leathery leaf blade is long and wide and is oblong to ovate in shape. In young trees, the leaf edges are irregularly lobed or split. On older trees, the leaves are rounded and dark green, with a smooth leaf margin. The leaf blade has a prominent main nerve and, starting on each side, six to eight lateral nerves. The stipules are egg-shaped at a length of . Flowers and fruit The inflorescences are formed on the trunk, branches or twigs (cauliflory). Jackfruit trees are monoecious, having both female and male flowers on a tree. The inflorescences are pedunculated, cylindrical to ellipsoidal or pear-shaped, to about long and wide. Inflorescences are initially completely enveloped in egg-shaped cover sheets which rapidly slough off. The flowers are small, sitting on a fleshy rachis. The male flowers are greenish, some flowers are sterile. The male flowers are hairy and the perianth ends with two membrane. The individual and prominent stamens are straight with yellow, roundish anthers. After the pollen distribution, the stamens become ash-gray and fall off after a few days. Later all the male inflorescences also fall off. The greenish female flowers, with hairy and tubular perianth, have a fleshy flower-like base. The female flowers contain an ovary with a broad, capitate, or rarely bilobed scar. The blooming time ranges from December until February or March. The ellipsoidal to roundish fruit is a multiple fruit formed from the fusion of the ovaries of multiple flowers. The fruits grow on a long and thick stem on the trunk. They vary in size and ripen from an initially yellowish-greenish to yellow, and then at maturity to yellowish-brown. They possess a hard, gummy shell with small pimples surrounded with hard, hexagonal tubercles. The large and variously shaped fruit have a length of and a diameter of and can weigh or