This plant was identified as Cedrus deodara and of course it is wrong. What could it be? I think the pic was shot in Southern India since there was a caption in Malayalam (ദേവതാരു – മലയാളം: ചള്ളിയാൻറെ തോട്ടത്തിൽ നിന്ന്) but I'm not able to read it. Thanks in advance.
Needs a close-up. To hazard a guess, possibly Calocedrus macrolepis or maybe Chamaeyparis hodginsii (syn. Fokienia hodginsii), but those are far from certain. Where did you find the pic? Edit - found the original pic, which is much larger; clearly not a conifer at all.
The contributor has uploaded a detailed pic of the leaves of the same plant (hi-res image here, probably also this pic shows parts of the same tree). Thanks in advance for your help.
That is very easy to rule out. Syzygium paniculatum has leaves which are opposite to each other. http://botu07.bio.uu.nl/seedlist/images/Syzygium paniculatum 75GR00144.jpg http://anpsa.org.au/s-pan.html Your mystery tree has leaves which are alternate. Maybe is it flowers then that would give more clues.
Could it be Simarouba glauca? File:Simarouba glauca.jpg - Wikimedia Commons Its common name is paradise tree, quite similar to deodār or devadāru, "divine tree".
It would seem not. According to this U. of Florida Extension page, the fruits of that should be "small clusters of dark purple, one-inch-long, edible fruits". From photos, fruits of Simarouba hang in clusters at the ends of the branches. These fruits, visible along the right side of your detailed plant pic, are round and appear singly or in pairs along the branch at the leaf nodes, right at the branch, with very short stems if any.
Another attempt: Erythroxylum monogynum, called "red cedar", used in South India as a medicinal plant where Cedrus deodara is not available. http://opendata.keystone-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Erythroxylum-monogynum.jpg
I'm not noticing anything that would rule that out. I see on this Flowers of India page, Erythroxylum monogynum - Red Cedar, under common names: "Malayalam: Devataru". When I enter the Malayalam text from your first posting to Google translate, it shows in the transliterated text "dēvatāru – malayāḷaṁ". It seems to me that you've got this figured out now. It looks like the problem might have started with Google translate, and it's Google translate that's helping solve it. Are you researching this to correct the Wikimedia Commons entry?
Well, yes, but also because I'm curious. The speciemen was classified as Cedrus deodara, a very popular tree in my zone, and of course that was wrong: so I decided to investigate to discover what that really was. The only problem with E. monogynum is the height of the specimen, maybe a little too high to be "a shrubby tree, up to seven meters".
