Terminalia chebula Retz. (Aralu in Sinhala) is a perennial plant, which consists of vital medicinal properties. The T. chebula trees are naturally distributed only in the Intermediate Zone of Sri Lanka, although planted trees can be seen in all agro-climatic zones. However, no agronomic or ecological research has been conducted on this species. Consequently, this research was conducted to identify the ecological distribution of T. chebula in different agro-ecological regions of Sri Lanka and to characterize the different populations based on its morphological variation. Forty one morphological characters were considered using samples from 125 trees representing different populations. The studied populations in Sri Lanka could be clustered into 4 groups based on their morphological characters. Each group consisted of plants from different locations, which suggest that the grouping is not based on environmental parameters. However, 80% of the Nilgala population grouped into one cluster and all the natural T. chebula plants are located only in Intermediate Zone indicating a relationship between the plant and the environmental parameters under natural conditions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4038/tar.v25i1.8036Altmetric score:
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Publication year
2013
Authors
Sanjeewa T A B D; Pushpakumara D K N G; Sangakkara U R
Language
English
Keywords
species, morphology, terminalia, carotenoids
Geographic
Sri Lanka
