Tamarindus indica L. | |
Fabaceae | |
Puliyamaram | |
| Botanical Name | Tamarindus indica L. |
| Synonyms | Tamarindus officinalis .Hook.; Tamarindus umbrosa Salisb. |
| Family | Fabaceae |
| Common Name | English : Tamarind tree / Tamil : Puliyamaram |
| Distribution | Global : Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the Caribbean Indian : Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka |
| Description | Deciduous tree up to 20 m height, bark brown to brownish-black, rough with vertical fissures, branchlets warty, tomentose. Leaves paripinnate, alternate, leaflets 20-34, opposite, sessile, lamina oblong, margin entire, lateral nerves 10-15 pairs, pinnate, slender, obscure, looped at the margin forming intramarginal nerve. Inflorescence racemes. Flowers pentamerous, complete, zygomorphic, bisexual, yellow with reddish-pink dots, calyx tube narrowly turbinate, lined by disc, lobes 4, subequal, oblong, imbricate, petals - outer rolled up, pink dotted, lateral clawed, subequal, oblong-lanceolate, lower pair scaly. Stamens 9 monadelphous, only 3 fertile, others reduced to bristle, base pubescent, anthers versatile. Ovary half inferior, stipitate, adnate to the disc, ovules many, style attenuate, tomentose, stigma globose. Fruit a pod, fruit wall crustaceous, mesocarp pulpy, endocarp septate, leathery, indehiscent. Seeds 3-8 or more, obovoid-orbicular, compressed, brown. |
| Flowering Fruiting period | April - June / February - April |
| Uses | Used to make furniture, Jams, jellies, Tanning, dyeing. The roasted seed is also used as a coffee substitute. |
| Medicinal Uses | Wound healing, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dysentery and fever, blood sugar reducing. |
| Tamil Name | Puliyamaram |