Litsea Glutinosa
Family : Lauraceae
Common Name : Indian Laurel
Hindi Name : medh, chandna, maidalakri
Telugu Name : meda, nara-nalike
Sanskrit : medasaka
Marathi : maidalakdi, ranamba, maida lakadee
Tree Characteristics :
Indian Laurel is an evergreen or deciduous trees, 3-15 m tall. Young branchlets are gray-yellow velvety. Alternately arranged leaves are carried on 1-2.6 cm long gray-yellow velvety stalks. Leaves are mostly elliptic but variable, 7-15 x 3-7 cm, velvety on both surfaces when young, lateral veins 5-12 pairs. Leaf base is wedge-shaped blunt or rounded, tip blunt or shortly tapering. Flowers are borne in solitary or several, few-flowered umbels on short branchlets. Stalks carrying the umbels are 1-1.5 cm. Male flowers have petals imperfect or missing. Fertile stamens are often 15 or more. Fruit is round, 5-7 mm in diameter, fruit-stalk is 3-6 mm, slightly thickened at the top. Flowering: May-June.
Nursery Practice :
Data insufficient
Economic Uses :
The powdered bark, known as jiggat, may be used as an adhesive paste in incense stick production.
Almost all parts of the tree are used traditionally but only the bark has high commercial value and in fact it is over-harvested unscientifically causing the death of the trees. It is principally used as a binding agent in incense-stick industry and lately seriously being considered as binding agent in tablet formulations and as plasters for fractured limbs. It is traditionally used for treating various human ailments and diseases.
