Common name: Algaroba, Mesquite, Junglee kikar जगली कीकर (Hindi), Vilayati babul (Hindi)
Botanical name: Prosopis juliflora Family: Fabaceae (pea family)
The Mesquite has been introduced in Asia and Africa and is now wide spread in
the semi-arid areas of the world. In many areas, it is considered a weed. Here
in Arizona, it is a drought resistant small tree, very useful in gardens for
the light shade it provides. Perennial deciduous thorny shrub or small tree,
to 12 m tall; trunk to 1.2 m in diameter, bark thick, brown or blackish,
shallowly fissured; leaves compound, commonly many more than 9 pairs, the
leaflets mostly 5–10 mm long, linear-oblong, glabrous, often hairy, commonly
rounded at the apex; stipular spines, if any, yellowish, often stout; flowers
perfect, greenish-yellow, sweet-scented, spikelike; corolla deeply lobate.
Pods several-seeded, strongly compressed when young, thick at maturity, more
or less constricted between the seeds, 10–25 cm long, brown or yellowish,
10–30-seeded. Mesquite pods are among the earliest known foods of prehistoric
man in the new world. Today flour products made from the pods are still
popular, although only sporadically prepared, mostly by Amerindians. Pods are
made into gruels, sometimes fermented to make a mesquite wine.
| Photographed in Lodhi Garden,
New Delhi |
Identification credit: Shaista Ahmad
|
ntroduced
