''Terminalia paniculata'' is a large-sized commercial timber tree endemic to

Peninsular India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the Union territories of In ...

, commonly distributed in

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

and

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

. Terminalias are especially known for cyclic triterpenes, flavanoids and tannins and ''T. paniculata'' is the best source of

tannins Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term ''tannin'' is widely applied to any large po ...

. The tree is commonly known as Kindal in terms of timber and Flowering Murdah in terms of ornamental purposes, locally known as Kindal (

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

), Hanalu (

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

), Kindal (Konkani), Vellamaruth (

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

), Pillai Maruth (Tamil), Pulimaddi (Telugu), Asvakarna (

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

), Kinjal (Marathi), etc. Golden coloured flowers and deep red coloured fruits of ''T. paniculata'' give splendid colouration to the entire forest area due to the formation of a large number of flowers and fruits in a single individual and population dominance. Species were recently neotypified by the

Botanical Survey of India Botanical Survey of India (BSI) is a governmental research institution in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was founded on 13 February 1890 during British Raj in India and now is under the Government of India Ministry of Environment, Forest an ...

References

paniculata {{rosid-tree-stub