Description

Malabar Neem is a tree in the family Meliaceae. It is distributed all throughout India (with the exception of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim), the Malay Peninsula and tropical Asia. It is present in moist deciduous, evergreen and semi-evergreen forests. It leaves fall from February to May, flowers January to March and fruits from November to February.

Features:

Malabar Neem is a deciduous trees, up to 20 m high, bark 6-8 mm thick, dark brown, rough, warty, peeling in rectangular, long and broad peels. Young shoots and inflorescence are scurfy velvet-hairy. Leaves are 2-3 pinnate, (rarely 1-pinnate), imparipinnate, attenuate, rachis 10-30 cm long, round, slender, swollen at base, scurfy velvet-hairy when young. Side-stalks are 3-7 pairs, 10-20 cm long; leaflets 2-11 on each pinnae, opposite, leaflet-stalks are 3-10 mm long, slender. Leaflets are 4.5-9 x 2-4 cm, ovate-lanceolate, base oblique, narrow obtuse, round or attenuate, tip long-pointed, margin entire or toothed, hairless at maturity, leathery, lateral nerves 6-10 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent; intercostae reticulate, prominent. Flowers are greenish white, 8 mm long, fragrant, in stellately pubescent, many- flowered branched panicles shorter than the leaves; peduncles long; pedicels short. Calyx stellately tomentose outside, deeply divided; lobes ovate, erect,ciliate. Petals 6 mm long, linear- spathulate, concave, pubescent outside, puberulous within, ciliate. Staminal tube scarcely 6 mm long, slightly expanded at the mouth, 10- toothed ( the teeth bifid), silky puberulous on both surfaces; anthers exserted,pubescent, longer than the teeth. Ovary glabrous 5-celled; style little longer than the staminal tube, overtopped by the apiculate anthers; stigma cylindric, 5- toothed; teeth erect. Malabar Neem is found in South India.

Medicinal Uses:

plant was observed to be used by the local tribes of Nilgiris for various infections. Literature reveals that the bitter tasted fruits of Melia Dubia is considered to be important in colic and skin diseases and also as anthelmintic. It gives positive tests with alkaloid reagents. Leaves and seeds of this plant were reported to possess two tetranotriterpenoids, compositin and compositolide.