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5(2):Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Azadirachta indica A.H.L. Juss.

This article should be read together with the article on the genus: Azadirachta in the Handbook volume indicated above in this database.

Mém. Mus. Nat. Hist. Nat. Paris 19: 221, t. 13, fig. 5 (1832).

Melia azadirachta L. (1753), Melia indica (A.H.L. Juss.) Brandis (1874), Antelaea azadirachta (L.) Adelb. (1948).

See genus treatment.

Native to the dry forest areas of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and possibly also to Burma (Myanmar). It is widely cultivated, also as a plantation tree, and sometimes occurs naturalized throughout India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia. More recently it has also been planted in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Saudi Arabia, tropical Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the southern United States.

See genus treatment.

A small to medium-sized evergreen to deciduous (drier regions) tree up to 25(-30) m tall, bole usually short, branchless for up to 7.5 m, up to 90 cm in diameter, sometimes fluted; leaves up to 38 cm long, with 4-7 pairs of leaflets, leaflets asymmetrical, lanceolate to ovate, 3.5-10 cm x 1.2-4.0 cm, margin serrate; flowers white; fruit oblong or ovoid-oblong, 1.2-1.8 cm long. Azadirachta indica grows naturally in mixed primary monsoon forest in semi-arid to wet regions, from sea-level up to 700 m altitude. The density of the wood is 720-930 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

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B. Sunarno

Sunarno, B., 1995. Azadirachta indica A.H.L. Juss.. In: Lemmens, R.H.M.J., Soerianegara, I. and Wong, W.C. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 5(2):Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea