CORAL WOOD TREE
Family
– Leguminosae
Scientific
name – Adenanthera pavonine
Common names
–
1) Red Wood in
English.
2) Rakta kambal in
Bengali.
3) Thorlingunj or
Ratangunj in Marathi.
4) Bandi guruvendi
in Telugu.
5) Anikundumani in
Tamil.
Growing
areas –
1) It has home in India, Burma and Andamans.
2) This tree loves
the moist damp climate.
3) It is very common
growing wild in the Western Ghats and parts of the south India.
General
Information –
1) It is very
popular tree as it’s spread out It’s branches to make a shady cover.
2) The seeds of
this tree are very bright and pretty to look.
3) It is medium sized
to tall deciduous tree.
4) It has rough,
dark grey-brown bark, and a slim straight trunk.
5) The younger
branches have smooth, red-brown bark.
6) The branches usually
start to grow high up the trunk and then spread outwards.
Leaves,
flowers, fruits and Uses of the Coral Wood Tree:
Leaves of
the Coral Wood Tree –
1) Each single
large leaf from this tree is made up of a lot of small leaflets which grow up a
stalk ending with one single leaflet.
2) The leaflets are
shed in the winter months.
3) These are dark
green in colour when fully grown but they are fresh green when new.
Flowers of
the Coral Wood Tree –
1) The appearing
period of the flowers are in March to May.
2) The flowers are
pale yellow and grow on spikes that look like small bottle brushes.
4) The five petals fold
back and the stamens stand out from the flower.
5) The petals darken
before the flowers falls and they can hardly been noticed on the ground under
the tree.
Fruit of
the Coral Wood Tree –
1) The seed cases, which
are green when they first ripen soon turns to dark red and then brown.
2) As they open,
they peel back and twist to show a creamy yellow inner lining and bright red
shining seeds.
3) These seeds are
all the same size and shape and fall on the ground in hundreds.
4) They are called
as Circassian seeds.
5) Although the
seed-cases appear at any time from the monsoon onwards they often remain on the
tree until after the next flowering season.
Uses of the
Coral Wood Tree –
1) Children loves
the seeds which can be used as counters for games, stringing as beads and in
many other interesting ways.
2) Goldsmiths still
use the seeds for the weighing the gold.
3) They are also ground
to a powder to make medicines.
4) The wood is used
instead of red scandal wood for furniture and panelling walls.
5) A paste made
from the wood is used for caste marks.
