Elephant apple - Dillenia indica

Common Name :	Elephant apple.
Botanical Name :	Dillenia indica
Family :	Dilleniaceae
Bengali Name :	Chalta.
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

The name of the fruit is Elephant apple. In Bangladesh we know this as Chalta. This grows very well in the Southern part of Bangladesh. This fruit plant is native to South Asia and few part of Eastern Asia. Botanical name of the Elephant apple is Dillenia indica and it belongs to the plant family Dilleniaceae.

Elephant apple (Dillenia indica) is an evergreen plant that can grow as a medium sized tree at best. The leafs are broad and having beautiful texture. They are toothed at the boarder and deeply veined. Because of the visible vein those leafs look corrugated.

Elephant apple (Dillenia indica) flowers are large and having very thick and hard bract. The shell like bracts look green from outside and whitish or creamy from inside. Flower has five petals which are dull white with a touch of coffee color. Most attractive part of the flower is the reproduction part. The stigma is white in color and having a shape of an Aster flower. It looks like an small flower inside. The stigma is surrounded by numerous brownish stamens.

Petals of the flower collected from ground.

Fruit of Elephant apple is a small ball shaped. It is sour in taste and can be used as curry, jelly. Also the picke made from this fruit is really mouth watering.

Petals of the flower collected from ground.

Elephant apple (Dillenia indica) flower bud.

Elephant apple (Dillenia indica) flower bud.

A ripe Elephant apple (Dillenia indica) fruit.

Photos of Elephant apple (Dillenia indica) were taken from the following locations of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh this is known as Chalta (চালতা) and the flower is known as Chalta ful (চালতা ফুল).
01) January 2015 (fruit): Jhalokathi.
02) June 2015: Ramna park, Dhaka.
03) July 2016: Ramna park, Dhaka.


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icflora.blogspot.com/