''Aegle marmelos'', commonly known as bael (or ''bili'' or ''bhel''), also Bengal quince,
[ golden apple,][ Japanese bitter orange,] stone apple or wood apple, is a rare species of tree native to the Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
.[ It is present in ]India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
, Sri Lanka, and Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
as a naturalized species. The tree is considered to be sacred by Hindus
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
.
Description
''Aegle marmelos'' is a deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...
shrub or small to medium-sized tree, up to tall with slender drooping branches and rather open, irregular crown.
The bark is pale brown or grayish, smooth or finely fissured and flaking, armed with long straight spines, singly or in pairs, often with slimy sap oozing out from cut parts. The gum is also described as a clear, gummy sap, resembling gum arabic, which exudes from wounded branches and hangs down in long strands, becoming gradually solid. It is sweet at first taste and then irritating to the throat.
The leaf
A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...
is trifoliate, alternate, each leaflet x , ovate with tapering or pointed tip and rounded base, untoothed or with shallow rounded teeth. Young leaves are pale green or pinkish, finely hairy while mature leaves are dark green and completely smooth. Each leaf has 4–12 pairs of side veins which are joined at the margin.
The flowers are 1.5 to 2 cm, pale green or yellowish, sweetly scented, bisexual, in short drooping unbranched clusters at the end of twigs and leaf axils. They usually appear with young leaves. The calyx is flat with 4(5) small teeth. The four or five petals of overlap in the bud. Many stamens have short filaments and pale brown, short style anthers. The ovary is bright green with an inconspicuous disc.
The fruit typically has a diameter of between . It is globose or slightly pear-shaped with a thick, hard rind and does not split upon ripening. The woody shell is smooth and green, gray until it is fully ripe when it turns yellow. Inside are 8 to 15 or 20 sections filled with aromatic orange pulp, each section with 6 (8) to 10 (15) flattened-oblong seeds each about 1 cm long, bearing woolly hairs and each enclosed in a sac of adhesive, transparent mucilage that solidifies on drying. The exact number of seeds varies in different publications.
The fruit takes about 11 months to ripen on the tree, reaching maturity in December. It can reach the size of a large grapefruit or pomelo
The pomelo ( ), ''Citrus maxima'', is the largest citrus fruit from the family Rutaceae and the principal ancestor of the grapefruit. It is a natural, non-hybrid, citrus fruit, native to Southeast Asia. Similar in taste to a sweet grapefr ...
, and some are even larger. The shell is so hard it must be cracked with a hammer or machete
Older machete from Latin America
Gerber machete/saw combo
Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San Agustín de las Juntas, Oaxaca">San_Agustín_de_las_Juntas.html" ;"title="Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San Agustín de las Juntas">Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San ...
. The fibrous yellow pulp is very aromatic. It has been described as tasting of marmalade
Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. The well-known version is made from bitter orange. It is also made from lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, sweet oranges, bergamot ...
and smelling of roses. Boning (2006) indicates that the flavor is "sweet, aromatic and pleasant, although tangy and slightly astringent in some varieties. It resembles a marmalade made, in part, with citrus and, in part, with tamarind." Numerous hairy seeds are encapsulated in a slimy mucilage
Mucilage is a thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms. These microorganisms include protists which use it for their locomotion. The direction of their movement is always opposite to that of the secretion of m ...
.
Chemistry
The bael tree contains furocoumarins
The furanocoumarins, or furocoumarins, are a class of organic chemical compounds produced by a variety of plants. Most of the plant species found to contain furanocoumarins belong to a handful of plant families. The families Apiaceae and Rutacea ...
, including xanthotoxol
Xanthotoxol is a furanocoumarin. It is one of the major active ingredients in ''Cnidium monnieri''.Xanthotoxol exerts neuroprotective effects via suppression of the inflammatory response in a rat model of focal cerebral ischemia. He W, Chen W, Zhou ...
and the methyl ester of alloimperatorin, as well as flavonoids, rutin
Rutin, also called rutoside, quercetin-3-O-rutinoside and sophorin, is the glycoside combining the flavonol quercetin and the disaccharide rutinose (α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→6)-β-D-glucopyranose). It is a flavonoid found in a wide variety of pl ...
and marmesin
Marmesin (nodakenetin) is a chemical compound precursor in psoralen and linear furanocoumarins biosynthesis
Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where substrates are converted into more complex products in living organisms. I ...
; a number of essential oils; and, among its alkaloids, á-fargarine(=allocryptopine), ''O''-isopentenylhalfordinol, ''O''-methylhafordinol. Aegeline (N- -hydroxy-2(4-methoxyphenyl) ethyl3-phenyl-2-propenamide) is a constituent that can be extracted from bael leaves.
Aeglemarmelosine, molecular formula C16H15NO2 sup>27D+7.89° (''c'' 0.20, CHCl3), has been isolated as an orange viscous oil.
Taxonomy
Bael is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Aegle''.
Habit and habitat
''Aegle marmelos'' is native across the Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
, and is cultivated throughout Sri Lanka, Tamilnadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language— ...
, Thailand, and Malesia
Malesia is a biogeographical region straddling the Equator and the boundaries of the Indomalayan and Australasian realms, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical Kingdom. It has been given different definitions. Th ...
. It occurs in dry, open forests
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
on hills and plains at altitudes from with mean annual rainfall of . It has a reputation in India for being able to grow in places that other trees cannot. It copes with a wide range of soil conditions ( pH range 5–10), is tolerant of waterlogging and has an unusually wide temperature tolerance from . It requires a pronounced dry season to give fruit.
Ecology
The tree is a larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
...
l food plant for the following two Indian Swallowtail butterflies: the lime butterfly ('' Papilio demoleus'') and the common Mormon (''Papilio polytes
''Papilio polytes'', the common Mormon, is a common species of swallowtail butterfly widely distributed across Asia.
This butterfly is known for the mimicry displayed by the numerous forms of its females which mimic inedible red-bodied swall ...
'').
Toxicity
Aegeline is a known constituent of the bael leaf and consumed as a dietary supplement with the intent to produce weight loss. In 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...
(FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
(CDC), the Department of Defense Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, and Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
state and local health officials identified an outbreak of 97 persons with acute non-viral hepatitis
Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes ( jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal ...
that first emerged in Hawaii. Seventy-two of these persons had reported using the dietary supplement containing aegeline, called OxyElite Pro which was manufactured by the Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
company, USPlabs. FDA had previously taken action against an earlier formulation of OxyElite Pro because it contained dimethylamylamine, a stimulant that FDA had determined to be an adulterant
An adulterant is caused by the act of adulteration, a practice of secretly mixing a substance with another. Typical substances that are adulterated include but are not limited to food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fuel, or other chemicals, that ...
when included in dietary supplements and could cause high blood pressure and lead to heart attacks, seizures, psychiatric disorders, and death. USPlabs subsequently reformulated this product without informing FDA or submitting the required safety data for a new dietary ingredient.
Doctors at the Liver Center at The Queen's Medical Center investigating the first cases in Hawaii reported that between May and September 2013, eight previously healthy individuals presented themselves at their center suffering from a drug-induced liver injury. All of these patients had been using the reformulated OxyElite Pro, which they had purchased from different sources, and which had different lot numbers and expiration dates, at doses within the manufacturer's recommendation. Three of these patients developed fulminant liver failure, two underwent urgent liver transplantation, and one died. The number of such cases would ultimately rise to 44 in Hawaii. In January 2014, leaders from the Queen's Liver Center informed state lawmakers that they were almost certain that aegeline was the agent responsible for these cases, but the mechanism
Mechanism may refer to:
* Mechanism (engineering), rigid bodies connected by joints in order to accomplish a desired force and/or motion transmission
*Mechanism (biology), explaining how a feature is created
*Mechanism (philosophy), a theory that ...
of how aegeline may damage the liver has not been isolated.
Uses
Culinary
Rich in vitamin C
Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...
, the fruits can be eaten either fresh from trees or after being dried and produced into candy, toffee
Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses (creating inverted sugar) along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack stage of . While being prepared, toffee ...
, pulp powder or nectar. If fresh, the juice is strained and sweetened to make a drink similar to lemonade
Lemonade is a sweetened lemon-flavored beverage.
There are varieties of lemonade found throughout the world. In North America and South Asia, cloudy still lemonade is the most common variety. There it is traditionally a homemade drink using ...
. It can be made into sharbat
Sharbat ( fa, شربت, ; also transliterated as ''shorbot'', ''šerbet'' or ''sherbet'') is a drink prepared from fruit or flower petals. It is a sweet cordial, and usually served chilled. It can be served in concentrated form and eaten with ...
, also called as ''Bela pana'', a beverage. Bela Pana
Bela Pana () is a drink made from bael (Aegle marmelos) fruit pulp. It is used on the festive occasion of Pana Sankranti (Odia new year) during the month of Baisakha, in Odisha, India.
Ingredients
Ripe bael, milk, black pepper, chhena, ¼ cup ...
made in Odisha
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...
has fresh cheese, milk, water, fruit pulp, sugar, crushed black pepper, and ice. ''Bæl pana'', a drink made of the pulp with water, sugar, and citron
The citron (''Citrus medica''), historically cedrate, is a large fragrant citrus fruit with a thick rind. It is said to resemble a 'huge, rough lemon'. It is one of the original citrus fruits from which all other citrus types developed throu ...
juice, is mixed, left to stand a few hours, strained, and put on ice. One large bael fruit may yield five or six liters of sharbat. If the fruit is to be dried, it is usually sliced and sun-dried. The hard leathery slices are then immersed in water. The leaves and small shoot
In botany, a plant shoot consists of any plant stem together with its appendages, leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems, and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop. In the sp ...
s are eaten as salad greens
Leaf vegetables, also called leafy greens, pot herbs, vegetable greens, or simply greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots. Leaf vegetables eaten raw in a salad can be called salad gre ...
. Bael fruits are of dietary use and the fruit pulp is used to prepare delicacies like murabba
Murabba (from ar, مربى) refers to a sweet fruit preserve which is popular in many regions of South Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolit ...
, puddings and juices.
Medicinal
The leaves, bark, roots, fruits, and seeds are used in traditional medicine
Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
to treat various illnesses, although there is no clinical evidence that these methods are safe or effective.
In culture
Bael is used in the ritual rites of Hindus. Bael is considered one of the sacred trees of Hindus. Earliest evidence of religious importance of bael appears in ''Shri Shuktam'' of Rig Veda which reveres this plant as the residence of goddess Lakshmi
Lakshmi (; , sometimes spelled Laxmi, ), also known as Shri (, ), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with ''Maya'' ("Illusion"). Alo ...
, the deity of wealth and prosperity. Bael trees are considered an incarnation of goddess Sati
Sati or SATI may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Sati'' (film), a 1989 Bengali film by Aparna Sen and starring Shabana Azmi
* ''Sati'' (novel), a 1990 novel by Christopher Pike
*Sati (singer) (born 1976), Lithuanian singer
*Sati, a character in ''Th ...
. Bael trees can be usually seen near the Hindu temples and their home gardens. It is believed that Hindu deity Lord Shiva
Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...
is fond of bael trees and its leaves and fruit still play a main role in his worship, because the leaf's triple shape symbolises his trident
A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm.
The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other mari ...
.
In the traditional practice of the Hindu and Buddhist religions by people of the Newar culture of Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
, the bael tree is part of a fertility
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...
ritual for girl
A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.c ...
s known as the '' Bel Bibaaha''. Girls are "married" to the bael fruit; as long as the fruit is kept safe and never cracks, the girl can never become widowed, even if her human husband dies. This is a ritual that guarantees the high status of widows in the Newar community compared to other women in Nepal.
References
{{Authority control
Aurantioideae
Fruits originating in Asia
Crops originating from India
Flora of the Indian subcontinent
Trees of Myanmar
Flora of the Andaman Islands
Flora of the Nicobar Islands
Plants in Hinduism
Plants used in Ayurveda
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Fruit trees
Trees in Buddhism