Elaeocarpus tuberculatus Roxb. (ELAEOCARPACEAE)
Common names
English: Deccan olive.
Kannada: Dande mara, Bhutali.
Tamil: Ruthracham.
Malayalam: Pilahi, Waggma.
Description: The trees can reach heights of 80-90 meters, sometimes displaying buttresses at the base, with a bark that showcases a mottled pattern of grey and white. Leaves crowded at ends of branchlets, obovate, 6-20 x 4-12.5 cm, narrowed, rounded or truncate at base, rounded to obtuse, sometimes retuse or acute at apex, obscurely crenate – dentate, subcoriaceous; midrib rufous hairy; petioles 1.5- 4 cm long, rufous hairy. Flowers in 3-12 cm long, axillary racemes, ca 2 cm across, white, fragrant. Sepals 5, linear-lanceolate or oblong. Petals 5, oblong-cuneate, laciniate, silky hairy without. Stamens 40-80; anthers oblong, puberulous with awns almost as long as anthers. Ovary, silky tomentose, 2 -locular. Fruit a drupe, ovoid, 2-4 cm long, smooth, yellow when ripe; pyrens terete, tubercled, 1-2 locular.
Flowering: December – February
Fruiting: May – October
Distribution: India: In evergreen forests between 1000 and 1500 m. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Andaman islands). Malaysia.
Uses: Wood brown, streaked with darker colour, used for planking, packing-cases and splints. It may be tried for plywood. Nuts used as substitute for ‘Rudraksha’ used as beads for rosaries, necklaces and bracelets. Decoction of bark stomachic, used in biliousness, haematemesis and indigestion; nut (pyrene) used in rheumatism, epilepsy and typhoid.