Where imli grows in India

Imli grows best in the hot, dry and semi-dry parts of India, on open, well-drained land with a clear dry season. ICRAF describes it as a tree that prefers semi-arid areas, grows from sea level to about 1,500 m in 350–2,700 mm of rain a year, and needs a long, well-marked dry season to fruit; its extensive root system makes it resistant to drought and wind. Researchers at ICAR's Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (Reddy and colleagues, 2023, citing an earlier survey) note that it is particularly common in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and that it tolerates high pH, saline and sodic soils and wasteland.

Imli is not native to India. Kew's World Checklist (read via GBIF) gives its native range as Madagascar and the Comoros, while ICRAF lists much of tropical Africa, from Senegal to Sudan, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

How it suits each part of India (our assessment, based on these sources):

• Grows well: the Deccan plateau, the southern peninsula, central India, the east coast, and the drier parts of the east and the northern plains.
• With care: the north-west dry zone, including much of Rajasthan, and the colder northern plains. ICRAF warns that young trees are killed by the slightest frost, so cover saplings on frosty nights for the first one or two winters, and water them through their first dry summers.
• Not suitable: the higher Himalaya, above the roughly 1,500 m limit ICRAF gives, and very wet places: PROSEA notes that where rain is above about 4,000 mm a year the tree does not flower.

How to recognise imli

An imli tree is easiest to recognise by its feathery leaves made of many small paired leaflets, its short, thick trunk with rough bark, and the curved brown pods that hang from its branches.

• Leaves: compound, with 10–18 pairs of narrow, oblong leaflets, each about 12–32 mm long (ICRAF).
• Flowers: small, pale yellow with red or purple veins, in short, loose clusters (Flowers of India, ICRAF). ICRAF says flowering comes with the new leaves, in most areas in spring and summer; eFlora of India has dated flower photos from Pune in May and Mumbai in June.
• Pods: sausage-shaped, velvety and rusty brown, about 10–18 cm long (ICRAF; eFlora of India gives 7–15 cm). The brittle shell holds a few hard, shiny seeds in sticky, sour-sweet pulp (ICRAF). TNAU gives the harvest in Tamil Nadu as March–April.
• Bark and shape: rough, fissured, greyish-brown bark, a short, stout trunk and a dense, rounded or umbrella-shaped crown (ICRAF, Flowers of India).
• Look-alike: vilayati imli or jungle jalebi (Pithecellobium dulce) is a different tree from the Americas. eFlora of India describes it with spines at the leaf base, leaves divided twice into a few pairs of leaflets, whitish flower heads and thin, twisted pods with pink or white pulp. Real imli has no thorns, many small leaflets and thick, straight or gently curved brown pods.