Operculicarya consists of 5 species of deciduous shrubs or small trees with conical or irregularly swollen trunks, warty-bumpy bark and gnarled branches. The genus is endemic to Madagascar and belongs to the Anacardiaceae, a family of over 800 species mainly occurring in the tropics and subtropics, including well known crop plants such as pistachio, cashew nut and mango.
O. decaryi is the most widespread of the genus and occurs in dry forests in the southwest and south of the island.
It can be a small shrub or a tree, up to 6 m or more tall, with tuber-like roots*. The trunk may be parallel-sided, bottle-shaped or conical, is up to 1 m in diameter and has silver-grey or dark grey bark.
The twigs are slender, more or less straight to strongly zig-zag; young ones sometimes hairy. The leaves are 2.5-6 cm long with 4-9 (usually 5-7) pairs of leaflets, which do not touch each other.
The bright to dark red flowers are either male or female.
Like O. pachypus, the plants are becoming increasingly rare in the wild and are listed in Appendix II of CITES.
* these can be used for root cuttings.
