Prosopis Cineraria Tree, highly Valued Khejri, Chhonkara, and Jammi

1 year ago

Here is a quick view of the Prosopis cineraria tree.
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Prosopis cineraria
Also known as Ghaf, Khejri, Chhonkara, and Jammi.

This is a small flowering, irregularly branched, evergreen tree with a thin, open crown, that can grow up to about 6.5 meters tall. They produce yellowish cream colored catkin flowers in the spring. There are thorns on immature growth, but thorn production should decrease as the tree matures and growth slows.

This tree has a wide range of uses for food as it is rich in protein. It highly supports honey bees with long and abundant flowering and honey produced is of a good quality. Extensively used as animal fodder feed as the leaves and pods are highly palatable and nutritious. Despite the economic importance for food, plants have been used in traditional medicine to treat various human ailments since ancient history. It possess many medicinal properties and used to cure many diseases. Studies showed that leaves and seeds were largely used to treat many diseases such as diarrhea, inflammation, measles, diabetes and prostate disorders.

These are not the only uses of the P. cineraria tree. The good bark is considered a good source of woods that can be used to make tool handles, boat frames, posts, and houses. While the poor or bad quality bark can be used as timber and other various commodities.

This species has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria, these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby.

It is native to arid, tropical and subtropical portions of Western Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. Established plants are very tolerant of drought, dry winds, salt, and alkalinity. Only young saplings require regular watering. It can grow on a variety of soils but good growth is obtained in deep sandy loam soil. Although young plants, and young growth on older plants, are sensitive to frost, mature plants can tolerate occasional, short-lived frosts down to -6 c/ 21 f.

*This tree should NOT to be confused with the similar looking Chinese lantern tree, Dichrostachys cinerea, they can be told apart by the flowers. While the Chinese lantern tree has bicolored pink-yellow flowers, this tree has yellow-colored bristled flowers only, like most other mesquites.

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