CSIR-NEERI Biodiversity Portal

DESI BADAM

Terminalia cattapa L.

Botanical name	: Terminalia cattapa L.
Synonym	: Terminalia procera
Vernacular name	: Country almond/ Desi Badam
Family	: Combretaceae
About the Tree	: Terminalia catappa is a tall deciduou
Height	: 15-20 m
Bark	: Trunk 1-1.5 m in diameter, often buttressed at the base. Bark is grey brown coloured, smooth in young trees, getting rough with age.
Leaf	: Leaves alternate , obovate with short petioles, spirally clustered at the branch tips, 15-36 cm long, 8-24 cm wide, dark green above, paler beneath, leathery and glossy. Before dropping they turn bright scarlet, dark red, or yellow.
Flower	: Flowers greenish-white, very small, with no petals but 10-12 conspicuous stamens, arranged in several slender spikes 15-25 cm long in the leaf axils. . Majority of the flowers are male and borne towards the apex, and bisexual flower are located towards the base of spikes. Some spikes have only male flowers. T. catappa flowers up to 3 times a year
Fruits	: Fruit is a sessile, laterally compressed, oval (egg) shaped drupe. Colour changes from green in young to dark purplish red at full maturity, with 2 ridges but no wings, About 2.5 x 3 to 6 cm long, Each fruit contain a cream-coloured cylindrical, oil-containing seed, which encloses the kernel (nut) are encased in a tough, fibrous husk within a fleshy pericarp.
Season	: During the dry season, the leaves turn into autumn colours of red, copper, gold. The tree usually sheds all its leaves twice a year in January February and July-August.
Medicinal Properties Peculiar Character	: Terminalia catappa leaves extracts have anti-diabetic activity. The tree has a characteristic pagoda shape because it sends out a single stem from the top centre. When the single stem reaches a good height, it sends out several horizontal branches. Rind of the fruit is light, pithy or corky tissue and float in the sea and thus dispersed by ocean currents.