Balanites aegyptiaca

[Devendra Bhardwaj]

Family: Balanitaceae

Name: हिंगोट

Species: Balanites aegyptiaca

Date: Apr 23, 2009

Place: Sariska Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan, India

Note: "Local Names in Hindi

Hingot (हिंगोट) / Hingota (हिंगोटा)

Description

Habit: A small to medium-sized, hardy evergreen tree or multi-branched spiny shrub, growing up to 6–10 meters in height. It features a fluted trunk with dark grey to brown, deeply fissured bark.

Foliage & Spines: The leaves are characteristically distinct—distinctly bifoliate (two leaflets per leaf), grayish-green, and leathery. The branches are armed with long, straight, sharp green spines (up to 8 cm long) that carry out photosynthesis even during dry spells.

Flowers & Fruit: Small, greenish-yellow, fragrant flowers appear in axillary clusters. The fruit is an oval, woody drupe (roughly 3–5 cm long). It turns yellowish-green to brown when ripe, containing a sticky, bittersweet pulp wrapped around a hard, single-seeded stone.

Distribution in Rajasthan

Balanites aegyptiaca is a resilient, drought-tolerant species widely distributed across the Arid (Western) and Semi-Arid (Eastern/Central) zones of Rajasthan.

It thrives in the harsh environments of the Thar Desert (including Jodhpur, Barmer, Bikaner, and Jaisalmer) as well as the rocky, gravelly pediments and undulating plains of the Aravalli foothills and transitional plains (such as Jaipur, Ajmer, Tonk, and Nagaur).

It is commonly found on degraded rocky hillsides, open scrub forests, ravines, and as a sturdy component of agroforestry fields where it acts as a natural windbreak and live fence."