Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family   

   MT135 : Shorea robusta Gaertn.

Plant Category : Tree

Melghat's Flora's Serial No. :

Synonym : Dryobalanops robusta;

Plant Common Name : Sal • Hindi: Sal, Salwa, Sakhu, Sakher • Marathi: sal, guggilu, rala, sajara • Tamil: attam, venkungiliyam, kungiliyam • Malayalam: karimaruthu, kungiliyam, maramaram • Kannada: ashvakarna, asina, asu, bile-bhogimara • Bengali: Sal • Oriya: Sargi gatcho • Urdu: Ral, Safed dammar • Assamese: Sal, Hal • Khasi: Dieng blei • Sanskrit: agnivallabha, ashvakarna, ashvakarnika

Plant Family : DIPTEROCARPACEAE

Description : Large deciduous trees, up to 50 m tall, girth up to 4 m, crown of mature trees dome shaped. Bark often fissured, flaky or smooth, reddish brown, bole straight, base of the trunk buttressed, flaked and wood hard, pale brown, branchlets buff tomentose, white resin. Leaves simple, alternate, lanceolate-ovate to oblong-elliptic, about 8-40 x 4-24 cm across, base obtuse to cordate, margins entire, apex acute with very short acuminate tip, reddish or pinkish when young becoming dark green when mature, coriaceous, midrib impressed above and prominent beneath, lateral veins 11-13 on either side of the midrib, subparallel, curved near margins, tertiary veins scalariform, petiole stout, glabrous, about 2-2.5 cm long, stipules lanceolate-falcate, fugacious, caducous, covered with silvery peltate scales, about 8 mm long. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, panicles or unilateral racemes, up to 25 cm long. Flowers bisexual, large, fragrant, yellow or cream white, pedicel subsessile, bracts minute, caducous, calyx 5 lobed, tubular with short valvate lobes, imbricate, ovate-triangular, adnate to the receptacle, outer 3 larger than the inner 2 lobes, about 2-2.5 mm long, petals 5, white, pale yellow to pinkish strips, lanceolate, base slightly connate, apex acuminate, glabrous inside, buff pubescent outside, 10-13 nerved longitudinally. Stamens 25 or more, adnate persistent, short, filaments somewhat flattened or tapering and filiform, anthers subglobose, narrow oblong-ovate, connective subulate, minutely tri-fid towards beyond anther lobes, hair-like. Ovary enclosed inside calyx tube, narrow ovoid, pubescent, tri-locular, 2 ovules per locule, stylopodium distinct or not, style subulate, stigma tri-lobed or tri dentate. Fruit capsule or nutlike, ovoid, apex acute, densely pubescent, about 1.5 cm long, enclosed in calyx tube with 3 outer accrescent larger lobes and broader lobes, about 8 x 1.5 cm long and 2 inner ones, smaller, oblong-spathulate, apex obtuse, about 10-12 veined, about 3.5 x 0.5 cm across, calyx lobes base thick, saccate, pubescent. Seeds 1, cotyledons large, fleshy.

Plant Location in Melghat :

Medicinal Use / Activity : The resin is valued for its use in the treatment of dysentery, gonorrhea, boils and toothaches. The leaf juice is used in the treatment of dysentery. The leaves are warmed and used as a poultice on areas of the body that are swollen. They are also applied to the stomach of children with dysentery. The oil from the seed is used to treat skin diseases.

Plant's Phytochemicals : COMPOUNDS: alpha-TERPINEOL; CADALENE; Chebulinic acid; Corilagin; Dammarenolic acid; ellagic acid; FURFURAL; Gallic acid; Hopeaphenol; Leukoefdin; salicylic acid;

ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (4):

Alpha-terpineol;

Chebulinic acid;

Ellagic acid;

Gallic Acid;

Plant's Current Status : Lower Risk/Least Concern

Plant's Cross Database Reference : 259142

Reference : Prabha Y. Bhogaonkar and Pankaj A. Dhole; "Checklist of Flora of Melghat"; Chief Conservator of Forest & Field Director, Melghat Tiger Project, Camp, Amravati (2018 - 2019); Book

Reference : ~ Prabha Y. Bhogaonkar and Pankaj A. Dhole; "Checklist of Flora of Melghat"; Chief Conservator of Forest & Field Director, Melghat Tiger Project, Camp, Amravati (2018 - 2019); Book 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 :

Kingdom : Plantae - Plants
Phylum : Tracheophyta
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision : Spermatophyta - Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class : Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons
Subclass : Dilleniidae
Order : Theales
Family : Dipterocarpaceae - Meranti family
Genus : Shorea Roxb. ex C.F. Gaertn. - shorea
Species : Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree

Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree
Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree
Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree
Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree
Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree
Shorea robusta C.F. Gaertn. - sal tree