Cordia obliqua Willd. (BORAGINACEAE)
Common names
Sanskrit: Shelu.
Kannada: Challe mara, Mannadike.
Malayalam: Periya viri.
Tamil: Nama viri.
Telugu: Iriki, Pedda nakkera.
Description: Deciduous trees, 4-8 m tall with thick grey or brown bark. Leaves broadly ovate or orbicular-ovate, 8-14 x 6-13 cm, glabrous, subcordate or truncate or shortly cuneate at base, obtuse at apex, without white discs above, densely clothed with stellate, fulvous or white tomentum beneath; nerves 3-5 (usually 3); petioles 2.5 – 4 cm long. Flowers in terminal and lateral paniculate cymes, white. Calyx lobes 5, pubescent inside; teeth densely tomentose. Corolla lobes 5, white. Stamens 5; exserted; filaments hairy. Ovary superior, 4-locular; style terminal, twice branched; stigmas 4. The fruit is a drupe, ovoid in shape, approximately 2 centimeters across, exhibiting a smooth texture and colored in yellowish-orange or pink, accompanied by enlarged calyx lobes. The seeds are hard and lack an albumen (exalbuminous).
Flowering & Fruiting: December – May.
Distribution: India: Western Peninsula. Common in deciduous forests of Western Ghats. Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Uses: The ripe fruit is eaten and the unripe fruit is pickled. Wood greyish brown, moderately hard, used for boat construction, well-curbs, gunstocks and agricultural implements. Decorative veneers can be cut on a rotary machine. Decoction of the bark used in dyspepsia and fevers; fruit astringent, anthelmintic, diuretic, demulcent and expectorant, used in diseases of chest and urinary passage, kernels used in external application for ringworm.