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Limonia (plant)
Encyclopedia
Limonia acidissima is the only species within the monotypic
genus
Limonia. It is native in the Indomalaya ecozone to Bangladesh
, India
, Pakistan
, Sri Lanka
, and in Indochinese ecoregion
east to Java
and the Malesia ecoregion
. Vernacular names in English
include: wood-apple, elephant-apple, monkey fruit, and curd fruit; and listed below are the variety of common names in the languages of its native
habitat
regions. The Photo to the right is not the Photo of Limonia acidissima rather it is Aegle Marmelos or
Malaysia : Belingai
_in_talakona_forest,_ap_w_img_8336.jpg)
Limonia acidissima is a large tree growing to 9 metres (29.5 ft) tall, with rough, spiny bark. The leaves
are pinnate, with 5-7 leaflets, each leaflet 25–35 mm long and 10–20 mm broad, with a citrus
-scent when crushed. The fruit
is a berry
5–9 cm diameter, and may be sweet or sour. It has a very hard rind which can be difficult to crack open, and contains sticky brown pulp and small white seeds.
The fruit looks similar in appearance to fruit of Bael
(Aegle marmelos).
_in_talakona_forest,_ap_w_img_8333.jpg)
_in_talakona_forest,_ap_w_img_8335.jpg)
_in_talakona_forest,_ap_w_img_8334.jpg)
The rind of the fruit is so thick and hard it can be carved and used as a utensil
such as a bowl or ashtray. The bark also produces an edible gum
. The tree has hard wood which can be used for woodworking.
Bael fruit pulp has a soap-like action that made it a household cleaner for hundreds of years. The sticky layer around the unripe seeds is household glue that also finds use in jewellery-making. The glue, mixed with lime, waterproofs wells and cements walls. The glue also protects oil paintings when added as a coat on the canvas.
Ground limonia bark is also used as a cosmetic called thanakha in Southeast Asia. The fruit rind yields oil that is popular as a fragrance for hair; it also produces a dye used to colour silks and calico.
Indonesians beat the pulp of the ripe fruit with palm sugar and eat the mixture at breakfast. The sugared pulp is a foundation of sherbet in the subcontinent. Jam, pickle, marmalade, syrup, jelly, squash and toffee are some of the foods of this multipurpose fruit. Young bael leaves are a salad green in Thailand. Indians eat the pulp of the ripe fruit with sugar or jaggery. The ripe pulp is also used to make chutney. The raw pulp is varied with yoghurt and make into raita. The raw pulp is bitter in taste, while the ripe pulp would be having a smell and taste that's a mixture of sourness and sweet.
Nutrition
A hundred gm of bael fruit pulp contains 31 gm of carbohydrate and two gm of protein, which adds up to nearly 140 calories. The ripe fruit is rich in beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A; it also contains significant quantities of the B vitamins thiamine and riboflavin, and small amounts of Vitamin C. Wild bael fruit tends to have more tannin than the cultivated ones; tannin depletes the body of prized nutrients, and suggestion suggests it can cause cancer.
, Citrus
, Glycosmis
, Luvunga, Murraya
, Microcitrus, Micromelum, Naringi, Pamburus, Pleiospermium
, Severinia, Skimmia
, Swinglea, and Triphasia
.
Monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...
genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Limonia. It is native in the Indomalaya ecozone to Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, and in Indochinese ecoregion
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
east to Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
and the Malesia ecoregion
Malesia
Malesia is a biogeographical region straddling the boundaries of the Indomalaya ecozone and Australasia ecozone, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical Kingdom.-Floristic province:...
. Vernacular names in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
include: wood-apple, elephant-apple, monkey fruit, and curd fruit; and listed below are the variety of common names in the languages of its native
Native plant
Native plant is a term to describe plants endemic or naturalized to a given area in geologic time.This includes plants that have developed, occur naturally, or existed for many years in an area...
habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
regions. The Photo to the right is not the Photo of Limonia acidissima rather it is Aegle Marmelos or
- REDIRECT BaelBaelBael Bael (Aegle marmelos) Bael (Aegle marmelos) (Bengal quince, stone apple, Sanskrit : विल्व, Malayalam: കൂവളം, Bengali: বেল, Hindi: बेल (Sirphal), Marathi: बेल or कवीठ (Kaveeth), , Sindhi: ڪاٺ گدرو , Sinhalese: beli, Tamil: வில்வம் is a species of tree native to India...
Vernacular names
The common names of Limonia acidissima include:- , Elephant Apple, Monkey Fruit or Curd Fruit.(விளாம் பழம்)(কৎ বেল)
- KhmerKhmer languageKhmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...
: Kvet (ខ្វិត) - HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
: Kaitha (कैथा) or Kath Bel. - OriyaOriyaOriya or Odia may refer to:*Oriya cuisine* Oriya people in India* Oriya language* Oriya script* Oriya literature* Oriya cinema...
: Kaintha.. - Sinhalese: Divul. (දිවුල්)(कवठ).Kawista
- Khmer
Malaysia : Belingai
- SanskritSanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
: Kapittha (कपित्थ), Dadhistha, Surabhicchada, Kapipriya, Dadhi, Puṣpapahala , Dantasātha, Phalasugandhika, Cirapākī, Karabhithū, Kanṭī, Gandhapatra, Grāhiphala, Kaṣāyāmlaphala.
Description
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are pinnate, with 5-7 leaflets, each leaflet 25–35 mm long and 10–20 mm broad, with a citrus
Citrus
Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...
-scent when crushed. The fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
is a berry
Berry
The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....
5–9 cm diameter, and may be sweet or sour. It has a very hard rind which can be difficult to crack open, and contains sticky brown pulp and small white seeds.
The fruit looks similar in appearance to fruit of Bael
Bael
Bael Bael (Aegle marmelos) Bael (Aegle marmelos) (Bengal quince, stone apple, Sanskrit : विल्व, Malayalam: കൂവളം, Bengali: বেল, Hindi: बेल (Sirphal), Marathi: बेल or कवीठ (Kaveeth), , Sindhi: ڪاٺ گدرو , Sinhalese: beli, Tamil: வில்வம் is a species of tree native to India...
(Aegle marmelos).
Uses
Tool
A tool is a device that can be used to produce an item or achieve a task, but that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such...
such as a bowl or ashtray. The bark also produces an edible gum
Natural gum
Natural gums are polysaccharides of natural origin, capable of causing a large viscosity increase in solution, even at small concentrations. In the food industry they are used as thickening agents, gelling agents, emulsifying agents, and stabilizers...
. The tree has hard wood which can be used for woodworking.
Bael fruit pulp has a soap-like action that made it a household cleaner for hundreds of years. The sticky layer around the unripe seeds is household glue that also finds use in jewellery-making. The glue, mixed with lime, waterproofs wells and cements walls. The glue also protects oil paintings when added as a coat on the canvas.
Ground limonia bark is also used as a cosmetic called thanakha in Southeast Asia. The fruit rind yields oil that is popular as a fragrance for hair; it also produces a dye used to colour silks and calico.
Culinary
The fruit is eaten plain, assorted into an assortment of drinks and sweets, or well-preserved as jam. The scooped-out pulp from its fruits is eaten uncooked with or deprived of sugar, or is combined with coconut milk and palm-sugar syrup and drunk as a beverage, or frozen as an ice cream. It is also used in chutneys and for making Fruit preserves jelly and jam.Indonesians beat the pulp of the ripe fruit with palm sugar and eat the mixture at breakfast. The sugared pulp is a foundation of sherbet in the subcontinent. Jam, pickle, marmalade, syrup, jelly, squash and toffee are some of the foods of this multipurpose fruit. Young bael leaves are a salad green in Thailand. Indians eat the pulp of the ripe fruit with sugar or jaggery. The ripe pulp is also used to make chutney. The raw pulp is varied with yoghurt and make into raita. The raw pulp is bitter in taste, while the ripe pulp would be having a smell and taste that's a mixture of sourness and sweet.
Nutrition
A hundred gm of bael fruit pulp contains 31 gm of carbohydrate and two gm of protein, which adds up to nearly 140 calories. The ripe fruit is rich in beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A; it also contains significant quantities of the B vitamins thiamine and riboflavin, and small amounts of Vitamin C. Wild bael fruit tends to have more tannin than the cultivated ones; tannin depletes the body of prized nutrients, and suggestion suggests it can cause cancer.
Genera taxonomy
A number of other species formerly included in the genus are now treated in the related genera Atalantia, CitropsisCitropsis
Citropsis, known as cherry orange, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rutaceae.Selected species*Citropsis articulata - West African cherry orange*Citropsis daweana*Citropsis gabunensis - Gabon cherry orange...
, Citrus
Citrus
Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...
, Glycosmis
Glycosmis
Glycosmis is a genus of plant in family Rutaceae.Species include:* Glycosmis crassifolia* Glycosmis decipiens* Glycosmis longisepala* Glycosmis monticola* Glycosmis perakensis* Glycosmis tomentella...
, Luvunga, Murraya
Murraya
The genus Murraya comprises 12 species in the family Rutaceae, including the Curry Tree. This genus, along with genera Clausena and Glycosmis within the same family, are a major source of carbazole alkaloids. Parts of these trees are used in folk medicine and the leaves of M. koenigii are and...
, Microcitrus, Micromelum, Naringi, Pamburus, Pleiospermium
Pleiospermium
Pleiospermium is a genus of plant in family Rutaceae.Species include:* Pleiospermium longisepalum,...
, Severinia, Skimmia
Skimmia
Skimmia is a genus of four species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the Rue family, Rutaceae, all native to warm temperate regions of Asia. The leaves are clustered at the ends of the shoots, simple, lanceolate, 6-21 cm long and 2-5 cm broad, with a smooth margin. The flowers are in...
, Swinglea, and Triphasia
Triphasia
Triphasia is a small genus of three species in the family Rutaceae, related to Citrus. The genus is native to southeastern Asia and New Guinea....
.