Description

Maulsari is a medium-sized evergreen tree found in tropical forests in South Asia, Southeast Asia and northern Australia. English common names include Spanish cherry, medlar, and bullet wood. Its timber is valuable, the fruit is edible, and it is used in traditional medicine. As the trees give thick shade and flowers emit fragrance, it is a prized collection of gardens.

Characteristics:

Evergreen trees, to 20 m high, bark dark grey, cracked or fissured longitudinally, scaly, rough; lenticels vertical; exudation milky; young branches brown pubescent. Leaves simple, alternate, spiral, 4-12 x 3.5-7.5 cm; elliptic or elliptic-oblong, apex obtuse to acuminate, base round or obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; stipules lanceolate, caducous; petiole 15-40 mm long, slender, grooved above, pubescent; lateral nerves many, slightly raised beneath, parallel, slender, looped near the margin forming intramarginal nerves; intercostae reticulate. Flowers bisexual, white, fragrant, 1-3 in axillary fascicles, pedicel 1 cm long. Calyx lobes 8 in 2 series of 4 each, thick, outer lanceolate, valvate, pubescent. Corolla 1 cm across; lobes 24, 3 series of 8 each, with hairs on back and margins, acuminate. Stamens 8, alternating with pilose staminodes; filaments 1 mm, anthers oblong, cordate, 3 mm, connectives apiculate; staminodes lanceolate, acuminate, fimbricate, pilose. Ovary 0.1-0.15 cm long, void, hirsute without, 6-8-celled; 1 ovule in each cell; style columnar, 5 mm; stigma minutely fimbricate. Fruit a berry, yellow, ovoid, 2.5 cm long, 1.5 cm across, fleshy, epicarp thin; seed usually 1, oblong-ellipsoid, laterally compressed.

Medicinal Uses:

The bark, flowers, fruits, and seeds of Bakula are used in Ayurvedic medicine in which it is purported to be astringent, cooling, anthelmintic, tonic, and febrifuge. It is mainly used for dental ailments such as bleeding gums, pyorrhea, dental caries, and loose teeth