Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family   

   MT042 : Acacia catechu (L.f.) Willd.

Plant Category : Tree

Melghat's Flora's Serial No. : 179

Synonym : Acacia catechu var. catechuoides (Roxb.)Prain.; Acacia catechuoides (Roxb.)Benth.; Acacia sundra (Roxb.)Bedd.; Acacia wallichiana DC.; Mimosa catechu L.f.; Mimosa catechuoides Roxb.;

Plant Common Name : Khair, Cutch Tree, black catechu, black cutch, cashoo, catechu, wadalee gum • Assamese: kher • Bengali: khayer • Gujarati: kher • Hindi: dant-dhavan, gayatrin, khair, khayar, madan, pathi-drum, payor, priya-sakh • Kannada: kaachu, kadira, kadu, kaggali • Konkani: khair • Malayalam: karintaali • Marathi: khair, khayar, yajnavrksa • Nepali: khayar • Sanskrit: gayatrin, khadira, pathi-drum, payor, priya-sakh • Tamil: cenkarungali, kacu-k-katti, karai • Telugu: khadiramu. kaviricandra, nallacandra • Urdu: khair

Plant Family : Fabaceae

Description : Deciduous, gregarious trees, to 15 m high; bark dark greyish-brown to dark brown, rough, about 1.3 cm thick, exfoliating in long, narrow rectangular strips; blaze brownish-red; branchlets brown, glabrous. Leaves bipinnate, alternate, stipulate; stipular spines slightly infra axillary, paired, 3-10 mm long, straight or hooked, occasionally lacking on flowering branchlets; rachis 8-19.5 cm, slender, pulvinate, downy, grooved above, with a gland near the base of the rachis on the upper side; pinnae 10-20 pairs, 3.6-8 cm long, opposite, downy, slender, with a gland in between the terminal 6 pairs on the lower side, leaflets 30-50, opposite, paripinnate, sessile, stipels absent; lamina 2.5-8 x 0.5-1.5 mm, linear-oblong, base unequally truncate, apex round, obtuse, or mucronate, margin entire, pubescent, chartaceous; midrib subcentral at base, lateral nerves obscure. Flowers pale yellow, sessile, in long solitary or in groups of 2-4 axillary spikes; bracts cauducous; calyx cupular-campanulate, 1-1.5 x 1.3-1.5 mm, teeth triangular or deltoid; corolla 2.5-3 mm long, lobes oblong, ovate to linear-lanceolate; stamens many, 4.5-5 mm long; ovary stipitate, 0.8-1.2 mm long, oblong-ellipsoid; style 4-5 mm long; stigma terminal. Fruit a pod 5-10 x 1-1.6 cm, flat, straight, unlobed or sinuate along margins, thin walled, beaked at apex, brown, narrowed at base into a stipe, dehiscent; seeds 3-10, orbicular or ovate, flattened.

Plant Location in Melghat : Harisal, Raipur, Dhargad

Medicinal Use / Activity : mother and child healthcare; skin diseases; used in melancholia, conjunctivits, haemaptysis, catarrah, cough, pruritus, leprosy, leucoderma, skin diseases, helminthiasis, norexia, Diarrhea, dysentery, foul ulcers and wounds, aemoptysis, haematemesis, haemorrages, fever, anaemia, diabetes and pharyngodynia.

Plant's Phytochemicals : COMPOUNDS: 4-hydroxybenzoic acid; kaempferol; quercetin; 3,4',7-trihydroxyl-3',5-dimethoxyflavone; catechin; epicatechin; afzelechin; epiafzelechin; mesquitol; ophioglonin; aromadendrin; phenol;

ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (5):

Quercetin;

Kaempferol;

Flavone;

Catechin;

Epicatechin;

Plant's Current Status : -

Plant's Cross Database Reference : 259142

Reference : Dhore M. A. (1984) The flora of melghat tiger reserve - https://indiabiodiversity.org/species/show/228563 - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Cutch%20Tree.html - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20822013

Reference : ~ Dhore MA and Joshi PA; "Flora of Melghat Tiger Reserve"; Directorate, Project Tiger, Melghat (1988); PMID :

~ Omesh Bajpai, Jitendra Pandey and Lal Babu Chaudhary; "Ethnomedicinal Uses of Tree Species by Tharu Tribes in the Himalayan Terai Region of India"; Research Journal of Medicinal Plant (2016); 10(1): 19-41 PMID :

~ Das, DC.; Sinha, NK.; Chattopadhyay JC.; Das M. and Samanta P.; "The use of medicinal plants for the treatment of Gonorrhea and Syphilis in south west Bengal of India"; International Journal of Phytomedicine (2013); 5: 14-17 PMID :

~ Rajendra Prasad Bharti, Abhilasha shrivastava, Jagjeevan Ram Choudhary, Asha Tiwari and N. K. Soni; "Ethno Medicinal Plants used by Tribal Communities in Vindhya region of Rewa and Sidhi District of Madhya Pradesh, India"; IOSR Journal of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences (2013); 8(6): 23-28 PMID :

Kingdom : Plantae - Plants
Phylum : Tracheophyta
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision : Spermatophyta - Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class : Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons
Subclass : Rosidae
Order : Fabales
Family : Fabaceae / Leguminosae - Pea family
Genus : Acacia
Species : Acacia catechu (L. f.) P.J.H. Hurter & Mabb. - black cutch

Acacia catechu (L. f.) P.J.H. Hurter & Mabb. - black cutch
Acacia catechu (L. f.) P.J.H. Hurter & Mabb. - black cutch
Acacia catechu (L. f.) P.J.H. Hurter & Mabb. - black cutch
Acacia catechu (L. f.) P.J.H. Hurter & Mabb. - black cutch