Ceylon Oak

Wild Guava is a medium-sized deciduous tree that grows up to 20 m tall. Its leaves turn red in the cold season. It is the Kumbhi of Sanskrit writers and has been named so because of the hollow on top of the fruit that gives it the appearance of a water-pot. Wild pigs are very fond of the bark because of which hunters use it to attract them. The fruit and stem exude an astringent gum and the bark is made into coarse cordage. The Tamil name Puta-tanni-maram signifies ”water- bark-tree,” which is a reference to the astringent gum trickling down the bark in dry weather.

Bark surface flaking in thin strips, fissured, dark grey; crown spreading. Leaves arranged spirally, often clustered at the apices of twigs, simple, broadly obovate, tapering at the base, margin toothed, stipules small, caducous.

Flowers in an erect raceme at the end of branches. Flowers are large, white. Sepals are 4, petals 4, free. Stamens are many, connate at the base; disk annular; ovary inferior, 4-5-locular with many ovules in 2 rows per cell, style 1. Fruit a large, many-seeded drupe, globose to depressed globose, crowned by the persistent sepals. Seedling with hypogeal germination; cotyledons absent (seed containing a swollen hypocotyl); shoot with scales at the first few nodes.

Medicinal uses: The bark of the tree and the sepals of the flowers are well-known Indian remedies and are valued for their astringent and mucilaginous properties. They are administered internally for cough and cold and applied externally as an embrocation.