| Type | Indigenous |
|---|---|
| Family | Caesalpinioidae |
| Synonym | Piliostigma malabaricum (Roxb.) Benth. |
| Local Name | Arampuli |
| Local Name 2 | Malabar bauhinia |
| Habit | Small sized tree |
| Tree Seed | Fruit type: Pod. Seed weight: 1,100 to 2,600 seeds /kg (Luna, 1996; Kindt et.al.,1997; Chacko et al., 2002); 11,290 seeds/kg (Troup, 1921). Vernacular name: Amli, Kachnar (Hindi), Mandaram, Arampuli (Malayalam), Malayathi, Mandarai (Tamil) (Chacko et al., 2002); Vellathi (Tamil). Flowering season: September to January, August to October, flowering sometimes extending even to November (Troup, 1921). Fruiting season: January to March; January to May (Sen Gupta, 1937; Chacko et al., 2002). Germination type: Epigeal (Chacko et al., 2002). Germination percentage: 14 to 18; 70 to 100 (FRI, 1983; Chacko et al., 2002). Method of propagation: Direct sowing. |
| Botanical Features | Deciduous trees, bark 10-15 mm thick, brown, rough, shallow with vertical and horizontal furrows, fibrous, exfoliating in long strips; blaze red, concentrically striated. Leaves simple, bilobed, alternate; stipules small, free, lateral, cauducous; petiole 25-30 mm long, slender, glabrous, swollen at tip and base; lamina 5-10 x 7-12.5 cm, broader than long, suborbicular, base cordate, apex obtuse, margin entire, glabrous above, slightly glaucous beneath, coriaceous; 9-11 nerves from the base, palmate, prominent, intercostae reticulate, prominent. Flowers bisexual, 6-8 mm across, cream coloured, in axillary corymbs; fruit a pod, 25-30 x 1.8-2.5 cm, straight, flattened, beaked, longitudinally striate, glabrous; seeds 20-30, oblong. |
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