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Plant

Wood apple

Aegle marmelos

हिन्दी: बेल, श्रीफल

IUCN: Near Threatened
Wood apple (Aegle marmelos) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Wood apple (Aegle marmelos) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Jamwa Ramgarh, Vishanpura, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Aegle marmelos
Hindi name
बेल, श्रीफल
Family
Rutaceae, order Sapindales
Group
Plant
Conservation status
Near Threatened

A sacred tree with a hard, fragrant fruit.

  • Spot it Leaves of three leaflets, long thorns and a hard round fruit.
  • Home Dry forests, temples and village groves.
  • Food web Bees visit the flowers; monkeys and langurs eat the fruit.
  • Why it matters Hosts lime swallowtail caterpillars and feeds primates, linking one tree to many animals; it also thrives in dry, poor soil.

Read more: Aegle marmelos on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 2 verified records of this species on iNaturalist, between 2006 and 2026, in Jaipur and Vishanpura.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  5. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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