• Family : EUPHORBIACEAE
  (Spurge Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : AMLA FAMILY (आँवला फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : EUPHORBIACEAE
• Synonym(s) : Stillingia agallocha (L.) Baill.
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Excoecaria agallocha L.
• Common name : Blinding Tree, Agallocha
• Vernacular name : Gangwa (Hindi); Thilla, Haro gida (Kannada); Guan, Gaugoa (Oria); Thilla (Telugu); Thallaii (Tamil); Komatti, Kammetti, Kannampotti (Malayalam)
• Habit : Tree
• Habitat : Banks of backwaters and mangrove forests
• Comments / notes : A Sacred Tree. Occasional in evergreen forests and marshy places. Wood has high calorific value and hence used as fuel. Latex is poisonous, when fallen on eye will damage the vision and hence called 'Blinding Tree'.
• Flower, Fruit : February-June
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Dakshina Kannada district, Udupi district, Uttara Kannada district
  • Kerala : Kasaragod district, Kannur district, Kozhikode district, Malappuram district, Thrissur district, Ernakulam district, Alappuzha district, Kollam district, Thiruvananthapuram district
  • Odisha : Cuttack district, Kendrapara district, Jagatsinghpur district, Balasore district
• Native : India to Pacific Islands
• World Distribution : India, Sri Lanka to Formosa, Malaysia, Pacific Islands, Australia, Ryu Kyu Islands
• Conservation Status : Least Concern (LC)
• Literature : H.O. Saxena & M. Brahmam, 1995- Flora of Orissa Vol. 3; IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.1. ; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI; Saldanha, C.J. (1996). Flora of Karnataka vol. 2. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co, New Delhi; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2003 – Flora of Udupi district
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Excoecaria agallocha. Downloaded on 21 November 2024.

Botanical Description

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