Terminalia arjuna

HABIT: The length of the plant is up to 100 feet. It has a buttressed trunk and horizontally spreading branches. The branches are dropped downwards. The smooth grey bark of the plant shows the presence of a single-layered epidermis with hair-like projections and few scattered lenticels. . Petioles are arranged with one or two prominent glands at the top, immediately below the leaf. The flowers are white with short axillary spikes. Fruit is a drupe and is often notched near the top, marked with oblique upward curving striations. 

CONSERVATION STATUS: Evaluated as 'Not Evaluated' by IUCN.

MEDICINAL USES: Terminalia arjuna's plant products are nowadays utilized in the modern medical system to treat most of the diseases, particularly; cardiovascular diseases (CVD), ulcers, diabetes, cough, excessive perspiration, asthma, tumor, inflammation and skin disorders. It is used in the treatment of fractures, ulcers, hepatic and showed hypocholesterolemic, antibacterial, antimicrobial, antitumoral, antioxidant, antiallergic and antifeedant, antifertility and antiHIV activities. Most imortantly it has been used as a cardiotonic in heart failure, ischemic, cardiomyopathy, atherosclerosis, myocardium necrosis and has been used for the treatment of different human diseases like blood diseases, anemia, venereal and viral disease. 

(Amalraj, A., & Gopi, S. (2017). Medicinal properties of Terminalia arjuna (Roxb.) Wight & Arn.: a review. Journal of traditional and complementary medicine, 7(1), 65-78.)

ETHNOBOTANICAL USES:  In Ayurvedic literature, the plant is known with synonyms of Arjun, the Hero of the great epic, Mahabharata. The plant Arjuna has been mentioned in many ancient Indian Medicinal literature including Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, and Astang Hridayam. Vagbhatta was the first person who used the stem bark powder of Arjuna for heart ailments. In Ayurveda, it is mentioned as Hridya (Cardiac tonic). The mixture of bark powder with rice-washed water was used to treat blood in urine by Tribal living in Sundargarh District, Orissa. Malkangiri tribal people chewed the fresh bark and swallow the juice as an antacid. Malabar tribe of Kerala was utilized leaf juice for the treatment of earache and bark powder for treating heart diseases. 

(Thakur, S., Kaurav, H., & Chaudhary, G. (2021). Terminalia arjuna: a potential ayurvedic cardio tonic. International Journal for Research in Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, 8(2), 227-236.)