Crateva magna - Large Garlic Pear

Large Garlic Pear is a tee up to 10 m tall, rarely shrubs, 2-3 m; trunk up to 35 cm in diameter branchlets warty, greyish-brown, smooth, or verrucose. It is closely related to Garlic Pear Tree, but has distinctly larger fruits. Also, Garlic Pear Tree is mostly leafless while flowering, whereas Large Garlic Pear is very much leafy at bloom time. Flowers are borne in many-flowered corymbs at branch-ends; axis 10-15 cm long, growing through axis. Flowers are creamy, polygamous, faintly fragrant,3-4 cm across; flower-stalks 3-7 cm long, leaving scars on falling off. Sepals are oblong to ovate-oblong, pointed, 2.5-3 x 1.3-1.5 cm. Petals are obovate-blunt, limb 2-2.5 x 1.5-1.8 cm, claw 5-10 mm long. Stamens are more than 24; filaments 4.5-5 cm long, lilac or purple. Leaves are trifoliate, carried on 4-12 cm long stalks with glands at tip. Leaflets are 2-4 times as long as broad, 8-25 x 1.5-6 cm, papery, glossy, glaucous beneath, brown tinged above; central leaflet elliptic-Ianceshaped or inverted-lanceshaped; laterals ovate-elliptic or rhomboidal, pointed to wedge-shaped at base, gradually long-tapering with a pointed tip; leaflet-stalks are 3-7 mm long. Fruits oblong-ellipsoid or oblong-ovate, 4-6 x 3-5 cm; pericarp woody, yellowish grey, with a powdery crest that soon withers off leaving it smooth; seeds are dark brown, 8-12 x 5-9 mm, dorsally crested, tubercled, embedded in creamy pulp. Large Garlic Pear is found In deciduous or semievergreen forests, along streams, at altitudes up to 1000 m, in Peninsular India, Western India, Gangetic Plains and Eastern India up to Tripura and Manipur. Flowering: January-April.
Medicinal uses: Warning: Unverified information

Young fruits are edible. Leaves are bitter and used in treating skin ailments. Root bark extract is administered for gastric trouble by Konda-reddis and Valmikis in Andhra Pradesh.