Spondias pinnata (L. f.) Kurz (ANACARDIACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Amate mara, Ambate mara, Kaadu amate.
Tulu: Ambatte mara.
Malayalam: Manpuli.
Tamil: Pullipulanh.
Telugu: Kondamanidi.
English: Hog-plum.
Description: Deciduous trees, 20-25 m tall with smooth, grey bark. Leaves usually crowded at the ends of the branches, alternate, imparipinaate, 18-50 cm long; petioles 5-15 cm long; leaflets 4-5 pairs, subopposite, elliptic-oblong, 6-18×5-8.5 cm, obliquely rounded at base, caudate-acuminate at apex, entire, membranous or subcoriaceous, nerves parallel meeting in an intra-marginal nerve; petiolules up to 1 cm long. Flowers polygamous, in 14-28 cm long panciles, greenish-white. Calyx 5-lobed, lobes triangular, pubescent. Petals 5, glabrous. Stamens 10. Disc deeply 5-lobed, thick, fleshy. Ovary 5-celled, superior, sessile. The fruit is an ovoid-oblong drupe, measuring 1.5-5 x 1-3.5 cm, and displays a yellow hue. The pulp is soft, acidic, and aromatic, while the stone is woody, hard, and rough with irregular furrows and cavities. Typically, there is one seed, though occasionally 2 or 3 may be present.
Flowering & Fruiting: April – December.
Distribution: India: Widely distributed in deciduous forests ascending up to 1650 m in Himalayas. Uttara Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andaman Islands. Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka,Java, Philippines, Malay Penisular and Thailand.
Uses: The fruit is eaten and used in curry. Wood not strong, employed for packing-cases, tea-chests, floats, canoes, boats, match splints and non-ornamental plywood. The bark is used for tanning. Root used for regulating menstruation; bark used in dysentery, rheumatism; gum demulcent; leaf used in earache; fruit antiscorbutic and astringent. In Ayurveda the fruit is used in debility, thirst, tuberculosis, blood disorders and for alleviating vata and kapha.