Description

Gaub Tree also called Malabar ebony, black-and-white ebony or pale moon ebony, is a species of flowering tree in the family Ebenaceae that is native to the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is a long-lived, very slow-growing tree, which can reach up to 35 m in height with a black trunk up to 70 cm in diameter.

Characteristics:

Gaub Tree is an evergreen tree with a spreading crown. It can grow up to 37 m tall, with a trunk girth of 2 m. The bark is black, smooth, and the inner bark turns bluish on exposure to sunlight. Leaves are oblong and glossy. The male flowers are formed in 3-5 flowered cymes in leaf axils. Female flowers are solitary, 4-parted, with 4 styles, and an 8-celled ovary. Fruits are round, up to 3.5 cm in diameter, and seated on a persistent sepal structure. The fruit is green, tinted red. The fruits are round, and yellow when ripe. It may be somewhat often astringent, even when ripe. Its common name is derived from the coast of southwestern India, Malabar. It is the provincial tree of Ang Thong Province in Thailand.

Medicinal Uses:

Gab is the Tinduka of Sanskrit writers; its bark is described in the Nighantas as a good application to boils and tumours, and the juice of the fresh bark as useful in bilious fever. The fruit when unripe is said to be cold. light, and astringent, and when ripe beneficial in blood diseases, gonorrhoea and leprosy.