Plant · P-908

Bael

Aegle marmelos

Bael is a slow-growing, spiny deciduous tree native to the dry and mixed deciduous forests of tropical Asia, from India across Nepal and Myanmar to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where it flowers and fruits on a pronounced dry season. It reaches about 10 metres with a 5 metre spread, wants full sun and will not grow in shade, and tolerates sandy, loamy or clay soil across a wide pH range from strongly acid to strongly alkaline; it prefers moist, well-drained ground but is extremely drought tolerant once established and outlasts most other fruit trees on poor soil. The hard-shelled fruit is eaten fresh or made into marmalade, jam, jelly and a sweet drink, is very high in vitamin C, and the young leaves and shoots are cooked as a vegetable; the astringent dried pulp is used across traditional medicine for diarrhoea and dysentery and as a general digestive remedy. The unripe fruit rind yields a substantial tannin content and a yellow dye, the fine-grained aromatic wood is carved into tool handles and turnery, and the gum serves as an adhesive and waterproofing agent. The leaves are reported to cause abortion and sterility, the bark has been used as a fish poison, and a large dose of the fruit's marmelosin compound can depress heart action and breathing.