Digital Garden

Dillenia indica L.

വളപ്പുന്ന

Family : DILLENIACEAE

Synonym : Dillenia speciosa Thunb.

Common Names : Syalita, Chalita, Valapunna, Chulta, Dillenia, Elephant apple, Hondapara Tree, Ma-tad

Flowering Period : May-February

Distribution : Indo-Malesia

Habitat : Evergreen forests, often grown as ornamental tree

Uses : Fruit edible- raw or cooked. The aromatic, acid, juicy fruit is usually used in curries, preserves, drinks or fermented into vinegar. The fruit is tonic and laxative. It is used in the treatment of abdominal disorders, and is mixed with sugar to be used against coughs. The bark and leaves are astringent. The bark is used as a mouthwash to treat thrush. The fruits can be rubbed in water to make a soap. The pulp is used as a hair wash. The leaf juice is applied to the scalp to prevent baldness. The dried leaves are used to polish ivory. The wood ash is added to clay bricks to increase their fire resistance.

Key Characters :

Evergreen trees, to 25 m high, bole straight; branches spreading; bark smooth, pealing off in small thin hard scales; branchlets appressed silky hairy. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate; petiole 15-75 mm long, stout, sheathing, winged, tomentose, grooved above; lamina 18.5-30 × 5-10 cm, elliptic, oblanceolate, elliptic-oblanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, base cuneate, acute or attenuate, apex acute or acuminate, margin serrate to dentate, glabrous above, strigose or pubescent beneath; lateral nerves many, parallel, prominent, intercostae scalariform, faint. Flowers bisexual, 12-15 cm across, solitary, white, terminal; pedicel 4-8 cm long, silky hairy; bracts to 5 mm long, solitary, median on pedicels, lanceolate; sepals 5, 4-6 × 3-5 cm, obovate, orbicular or elliptic, thick, fleshy; petals 5, 7-9 × 5-6 cm, obovate or oblong, white, veins green; stamens many, cohering slightly at base, in 2 series, outer 13-15 mm long, inner ones 20-22 mm long, inner ones arching over the short outer ones; carpels 14-20, cohering at the axis, ovules many; styles free, 18-25 mm long, flattened, oblanceolate to linear-lanceolate, spreading, white. Pseudocarps yellowish-green, globular with enclosed sepals, 10-12 cm across. Fruit an aggregate of berries, 3.5 × 1.5 cm; seeds 5, 6×4 mm, reniform, compressed, reddish, echinate with hairy margins.