Terminalia bellirica, Roxb

Family: Combretaceae

General :

It is found in all dry deciduous forests of A.P. Identified by bluish-grey or ash colored bark and leaves clustered towards the end of the branches. It is found on different types of soils.

. Flowering :

Pale greenish, white flowers with strong honey smell appear from April to June along with the new leaves.

Fruiting :

Fruits rippen from November to February.

Morphology of the Fruit/Seed :

Fruit is a dry fleshy drupe, 1.3 to 1.9 cms in diameter, globose or oviod, covered with grey-velvetty wooly hairs with a hard thick walled light yellow putamen, 1-seeded, surrounded by a green tissue.

Seed Collection and Storage :

Fruits are collected from healthy trees, depuled and the seeds are dried in the sun before storage. It can be stored for about a year though its viability and germination percentage is reduced from 65-70% to 40-50%.

Seed Biology :

Pretreatment:

To soften the hard seed coat, seed is soaked in mild hot water for 24 hrs.

Nursery Technique :

Pretreated fresh seed is sown in March-April in polythene bags. Germination commences in 2 weeks and is completed in one month. Pregerminated seeds sown in polythene bag show good result. The development of the root is very fast. The seedlings are ready for planting out in July-August when they are five months old.