Bio Diversity Park

Common Name : Stone Apple, Wood Apple

Hindi Name : बेल | Scientific Name : Aegle marmelos
Family : Rutaceae
Uses : Traditionally the fruit was used to treat diabetes, respiratory problem, inflammation, dysentery and diarrhoea. The fruits are rich in flavonoids, terpenoids, carotenoids and coumarins. The unripe fruits are bitter, acrid, sour, and astringent; aids digestion and stomach irritation; and are useful in treating diarrhoea, dysentery, and stomach ache. The unripe dried fruit is an astringent, digestive, and stomachic and are prescribed for diarrhoea and dysentery with spells of constipation. A sweet drink (sherbet) prepared from the pulp of its fruits produces a soothing effect on the patients who have just recovered from bacillary dysentery. The unripe and half-ripe fruits improve appetite and digestion. The roots and bark of the tree are used in treating fever. The roots are sweet, cure the fevers, stop pain in the abdomen and palpitation of heart, and allay urinary troubles. The leaves have astringent, febrifuge, and expectorant properties and are useful in remedy of fevers associated with catarrhal symptoms.
Native: India
General Description:

It is a fruit-bearing tree which is cultivated throughout India, as well as in Sri Lanka, northern Malaya, Java and in the Philippines. The tree, grows up to 15m tall and bears thorns and fragrant flowers. Leaves are alternate, pale green, trifoliate; terminal leaflet, 5.7cm long, 2.8cm broad, having a long petiole; the two lateral leaflets, almost stalkless, 4.1cm long, 2.2cm wide, ovate to lanceolate, leaf-stalk 3.2cm long. Flowers are greenish white, sweetly scented, bisexual, stalked; stalk 8mm long; diameter of a fully open flower is 3cm. Flowers are borne in lateral panicles of about 10 flowers, in leaf axils. The fruit is woody-skinned, 5-15cm in diameter. The skin of some forms of the fruit is so hard it must be cracked open with a hammer. It has numerous seeds, which are densely covered with fibrous hairs and are embedded in a thick, gluey, aromatic pulp. The fruit is eaten fresh or dried. The juice is strained and sweetened to make a drink.