Digital Garden

 Dalbergia sissoo 

Arjun

 Scientific Name- Dalbergia sissoo 

Commonly Name- North Indian rosewood or shisham 

Family – Fabaceae 

Habit type – tree 

Leaves 

Leaves are leathery, alternate, pinnately compound and about 15 cm (5.9 in) long. Leaves are compound, axis about 3.7-7.5 cm long; leaflets 3-5, about 3.5-6.5 cm long, broadly ovate or nearly round, tapering, becoming hairless, leaflet-stalk about 5-8 mm long; stipules about 5 mm long. 

Bark 

Trunks are often crooked when grown in the open. Young shoots are downy and drooping; established stems with light brown to dark gray bark to 2.5 cm (0.98 in) thick, shed in narrow strips; large upper branches support a spreading crown. 

Flower 

Flowers are pink-white and shaped like the 'pea flower'. Flowers occur in dense clusters on short (c 5mm) stalks. The dry fruit is a pale brown pod, flat, thin and papery, about 7 cm. Seed are visible from within. Flowers are whitish to pink, fragrant, nearly sessile, up to 1.5 cm (0.59 in) long and in dense clusters 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) in length.Stamens 9, monadelphous, tube slit on the upper side only, anthers uniform. 

Ovary velvet-hairy, 2-4-ovulate, style hairless, stigma headlike. 

Fruit 

Pods, oblong, flat, thin, 3-7cm long, 10-12mm wide. They contain 1-5 flat bean-shaped seeds 7-9mm long. Strap-shaped, hairless, 1-4-seeded. Seed flattened. 

FACTS & MEDICINAL USES 

The wood is suitable for house construction, e.g. for door and window 

Decoction of leaves is useful in gonorrhoea. 

Wood is alternative, useful in leprosy, boils, eruptions and to allay vomiting. 

Dalbergia sissoo is used as a shade tree in agroforestry systems