Xylia xylocarpa Roxb. (MIMOSACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Jambe.
Tulu: Chiruve.
Malayalam: Irumalla.
Tamil: Irul.
Telugu: Konda tangedu.
English: Burma iron wood.
Description: Large deciduous trees, 15-20 m tall with reddish-grey rough bark. Leaves bipinnate, pinnae 2; petiole 2.5-6.0 cm long with gland at the tip; pinnae 10-15 cm long; leaflets 3-5 pairs, often with an unopposed leaflet below the lowest pair, oblong-lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, 7-15 x 3-6 cm, rounded or acute at base, acute at apex, subcoriaceous, glabrous; petiolules ca 0.3 cm long. Flowers sessile, white, in globose peduncled heads, the peduncles axillary, fascicled or racemose. Calyx tubular-campanulate, 5-lobed. Petals 5, valvate, yellowish-white. Stamens 10, free; anthers tipped with stalked, deciduous gland. Ovary sessile; ovules many. The fruit is a sizable woody pod, falcate, measuring approximately 16 x 4.5 cm. It is flat and covered in a rusty tomentum. There are 6-10 seeds within, oblong-ellipsoid, about 1.5 x 1 cm in size, compressed, brown, and exhibit a smooth, polished surface.
Flowering : March – May.
Fruiting : May – January.
Distribution: India: Western Peninsula. N. Circars, Deccan, W.Ghats. Indomalesia.
Uses:
- The wood, characterized by its reddish-brown hue, is hard, durable, and serves well for sleeper and building purposes, albeit challenging to work with. Referred to as Burma ironwood, it is a preferred timber for constructing boats, canoes, and is commonly employed in shipbuilding for elements such as knees, crooks, and keels. Widely used in the manufacture of carts, tool handles, ploughs, harrows, oil-presses, yokes, pit-props in coal mines, curbs of wells, wheels, sides of ladder, brake blocks for engines, paving blocks, electric poles, bridge construction etc.
- A very good fuel wood. The charcoal from the wood is highly prized by iron smelters. Wood is fibrous and provides raw material for paper-pulp suitable for making wrapping paper. Bark anthelmintic, emetic, given in gonorrhoea, diarrhoea, ulcers, also used to stop vomiting; bark and seed oil antileprotic; seed oil used in rheumatism and piles.