Abstract

Zanthoxylum Rhetsa De., termed fittingly as the Assembly tree by Roxburgh because of its large size and spreading branches under whose shade the hill tribes used to conduct their meetings belongs to the family Rutaceae. In Malayalam it is called Kattamanakku, or Mullilam, in Tamil as Elavangam and in Telugu as Rhetsa maram. The tree has a wide distribution at low elevations in the forests of the Eastern ghats from Ganjam to the Godavari upto 3,000 feet and in the Western Ghats in South Kanara, Mysore, Malabar and Travancore at about the same altitudes. Plants collected from most of these places are preserved in the Madras Herbarium at the Agricultural Research Institute, Coimbatore. The tree has a very striking appearance with prominent spines which clothe densely the trank, branches and petioles. In the older parts of the trunk and the branches, the spines have a solid conical base. The bark is cream coloured. The leaves are alternate, imparipinnate, leaflets opposite, entire, strikingly oblique base and acuminate tip. The flowers are small, borne in terminal cymose panicles. They appear from June to November and the fruits are seen from October to January. The bark, pericarp and seed are all aromatic.

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