Diospyros malabarica (Desr.) Kostel. (EBENACEAE)
Common names
Sanskrit: Anilsra.
Kannada: Hole thumiri.
Tulu: Bandada mara.
Tamil: Tumbika, Kattatti.
Malayalam: Panachi, Vanaji.
Telugu: Elosu.
Description: The trees can grow up to 12 meters in height, characterized by wide-spreading branches, with smooth, dark grey bark. Leaves alternate, oblong-lanceolate, up to 19 x 6.5 cm, acute at base, obtuse or acute at apex, coriaceous. Flowers in 1 – many- flowered cymes, 4 – merous, greenish. Calyx lobes in male flowers broadly triangular, pubescent; in female slightly cordate. Corolla retuse, yellow. Stamens usually 40, in pairs; anthers hairy. Pistillode rudimentary. Ovary 8 – celled. Fruit a berry, globose, ca 4 cm across, yellow when mature; fruiting calyx large, reflexed; pulp viscid, turning black when exposed. Seeds 4-8, smooth.
Flowering & Fruiting: February-November.
Distribution: India: Almost throughout. Common along river banks. Sri Lanka.
Uses:
- Fully ripe fruits possess an overly sweet taste and are suitable for consumption. The wood, which is greyish in color, features a close grain, moderate hardness, and weight, and is occasionally used in building construction and boat making.The wood yields charcoal. Pulped fruit is used as a preservative for fishing nets and as a glue for book binding; boiled with or without powdered charcoal, it is used for paving bottoms of boats. Unripe fruits are employed for dyeing cloth and tanning hides.
- Bark used in dysentery and as febrifuge; unripe fruit used in ulcer; ripe fruit anticalculaus, used in diseases of blood; flower and fruit aphrodisiac, tonic, used in hiccup of children and lumbago; fruit and bark antidysenteric; ripe fruit and wood antibilious; infusion of fruit used as a gargle in aphthae and sore throat; seed and bark astringent; seed oil used in dysentery and diarrhoea. The bark, fruit, seed and seed oil are used for treating boils, leucorrhoea, haemorrhage, polyuria, leprosy, urticuria, intermittent fever and snakebite poisoning.
