Food Plants International - Plant Fact Sheets Tamarindus indica - Tamarind

Edible portions: Fruit, Seeds, Leaves, Flowers, Spice, Vegetable

A large spreading tree up to 24 m tall. It has a broad dense evergreen crown. In dry areas the tree can lose its leaves. The trunk can be 1 m across. The bark is rough and grey with a checkered pattern. The leaves are carried one after another along the branch. The whole leaf is 6-12 cm long and it is divided into 10-17 pairs of leaflets. These are oblong and without stalks. The whole leaf has a leaf stalk about 15 cm long. The leaflets are 1-2.5 cm long and 4 9 mm wide. They are a dull dark green and with a rounded tip. The flowers are pale yellow with brown markings. The flowers are about 2.5 cm across and hang on long
many flowered stalks. The fruit is an oblong thin skinned fleshy capsule. The brown seeds are inside this long rough surfaced, sausage-like fruit. This pod is 6-8 cm long and about 2 cm wide and contracted between the seeds. The pod cracks when mature. It is a legume. The pulp is date like and reddish brown. The seeds are shiny and hard. The pulp of the pods is edible.

A tropical plant. The tree is cultivated in a number of coastal towns in the tropics as a street tree. It is probably best grown below 800 m altitude in the tropics. It is drought resistant. It cannot stand water-logging. It does well on coastal dunes above high water level. It suits semi-arid areas. It grows in the Sahel. It must be in frost free locations. In Nepal it grows up to about 1200 m altitude. In Kenya it grows from sea level to 1,600 m altitude. It can grow in arid places. It grows in Miombo woodland in Africa. In XTBG Yunnan. It suits hardiness zones 11-12.