| Mangrove species |
Features |
Occurrence |
Ethnomedicinal uses |
|
X. garanatum |
Plant: Small to medium-sized, glabrous, evergreen tree
Leaf: Paripinnate, the leaves
have 1 or 2 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets are characteristically obovate with a rounded apex. The lamina is gradually tapering towards the thick, distinct petiolule. The lamina is coriaceous with a shining surface.
Bark: Trunk surface is pale, smooth with its thin bark peeling in flakes or patches
Fruit: large, globose up to 20–30 cm across.
Flowers: Flowers small in axillary few-flowered cymose panicles, 4-7 cm long.
Root: Erect, conical knee roots are absent but the horizontal cable roots develop into ribbon-like plank roots |
East Africa, South east asia, Australia
and Indian Costal region |
Bark: cholera, fever, malaria, diarrhoea
Leaves: microbial, diarrhoea
Fruits: hyperglycaemia, dyslipidemia,idiarrhoea |
|
X. moluccensis |
Plant: Moderate-sized trees (5-20m in height) with well-developed woody trunk
Leaf: Leaflets ovate
Bark: Bark longitudinally fissured,
Fruit: Fruit elliptical (8-12cm in diameter) containing 5-10 seeds.
Flowers: Flowers tiny white to pinkish in clusters on an inflorescence.
Root: small or no buttress roots, many peg-shaped, pneumatophores. |
Coastal region of
India, Bangladesh, Burma, Ceylon Malaya and Indonesia |
Bark: fever, malaria, astringent, febrifuge, dysentery, diarrhoea.
Leaves: bacterial, cancer and inflammation
Fruits: aphrodisiac, cure
for elephantiasis and swelling of the breasts, bactericidal. hyperglycaemia and dyslipidemia |
|
X. mekogenesis |
Plant: Tree 5-20m tall
Leaf: Paripinnate, the leaves have 1, 2 or 3 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets are ovate or oblong with a pointed or blunt tip. The surface of the lamina is flat.
Bark: Trunk surface is rough, dark brown, fissured with the bark peeling in long thick narrow strips.
Fruit: subglobose up to 10 cm across, with 10–15 pyramidal seeds.
Flowers: The inflorescence 10 cm long. The flowers are creamy white with an attractive orange red disc
Root: Horizontal cable roots produce vertical, conical, laterally compressed knee roots or pneumatophores which may grow up to 30 cm tall |
Bengal, Burma, the Andaman’s, the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, Australia, Fiji
and Africa |
Bark: malaria, diarrhoea, antinociceptive activities, inflammation and oxidant
Fruits: elephantiasis, preventing swelling of the breast |
|
