Aegle marmelos (L.) Correa (RUTACEAE)
Common names
Sanskrit: Bilva.
Kannada: Bilva patre.
Tamil: Vilvam.
Telugu: Marendu, Bilvapandu.
Description: Armed deciduous trees, up to 12 m tall with axillary spines. Leaves alternate, pinnately 3-foliolate; leaf rachis up to 6 cm long; leaflets elliptic, terminal ones ca 13×6.5 cm, the laterals ca 7 x 4 cm, oblique at base, obtusely acuminate at apex, slightly crenate along the margin, glandular-punetate. Panicles up to 8 cm long. Flowers white, fragrant. Calyx cupular, with 5 small deltate or suborbicular teeth, caducous. Petals 4 or 5, ovate-oblong, up to 12×16 mm, obtuse, glandular. Stamens 30-40 in irregular 2 or 3 series, free or irregularly coherent at base, unequal; anthers apiculate, Ovary ovoid-oblong, 8-12 (-20) locular; locules with many biseriate ovules; stigma cylindric or bluntly conical. Berries subglobose or oblate, 5-10 cm across, with hard, woody, grey or yellowish pericarp, many-seeded. The seeds are oblong, flattened, and found within a sweet, dense, orange or flesh-colored mucilaginous pulp; their testa is white and wooly-pubescent.
Flowering: January – May
Fruiting: June – November
Distribution: India: Almost throughout. Sri Lanka, Myanmar. Widely cultivated in S.E. Asia, Malaysia, tropical Africa and United States.
Uses: Regarded as sacred by Hindus and its leaves are used for various rituals. Wood is used for making pestles for oil and sugar mills, parts of carts and for agricultural implements. The mucilaginous substance surrounding the seeds is an adhesive which is used as a varnish for pictures and water-color paints.Root and root bark used for treatment of intermittent fever; leaves used for treatment of opthalmia; leaf extract applied in catarrhs and fever; unripe fruit astringent, stomachic digestive and used for treating chronic diarrhoea and dysentery; ripe fruits nutritious and cooling; pulp of ripe fruits effective in dyspepsia.