|Bengali Name :||Chalta (চালতা).|
|Common Name :||Elephant apple.|
|Botanical Name :||Dillenia indica|
|Photo Taken :||Bangladesh|
The name of the fruit is Elephant apple. In Bangladesh we know this as Chalta (চালতা). This grows very well in the Southern part of Bangladesh. This fruit plant is native to South Asia and few part of Eastern Asia. Botanical name of the Elephant apple is Dillenia indica and it belongs to the plant family Dilleniaceae.
Chalta (চালতা) is an evergreen plant that can grow as a medium sized tree at best. The leafs are broad and having beautiful texture. They are toothed at the boarder and deeply veined. Because of the visible vein those leafs look corrugated.
Chalta (চালতা) flowers are large and having very thick and hard bract. The shell like bracts look green from outside and whitish or creamy from inside. Flower has five petals which are dull white with a touch of coffee color. Most attractive part of the flower is the reproduction part. The stigma is white in color and having a shape of an Aster flower. It looks like an small flower inside. The stigma is surrounded by numerous brownish stamens.
Fruit of Chalta (চালতা) is a small ball shaped. It is sour in taste and can be used as curry, jelly. Also the Achar (আচার) made from Chalta (চালতা) fruit is really mouth watering.
Photos of this article were taken from the following locations of Bangladesh:
01) January 2015 (fruit): Jhalokathi (ঝালকাঠি).
02) June 2015: Ramna park, Dhaka (রমনা পার্ক, ঢাকা).
03) July 2016: Ramna park, Dhaka (রমনা পার্ক, ঢাকা).
This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icwow.blogspot.com/