Rohida Tree (Tecomella undulata): Where It Grows in India and How to Plant It

Rohida belongs to the dry belt that runs from Oman and southern Iran through Pakistan into north-west India. In India most wild trees grow in western Rajasthan, from Barmer and Jaisalmer to Churu and Sikar. A 2025 review in Frontiers in Pharmacology also lists Punjab and Haryana in its native range and records it in Maharashtra.

In its home range it lives on 150–500 mm of rain a year and puts up with winter nights of 0 to −2 °C and summer days of 48–50 °C. It does best on well-drained sandy loam or loam with a pH of about 6.5–8.0, and it grows happily on old, stabilised sand dunes.

How it suits each part of India:

• Grows well: the north-west dry zone, its natural home.
• With care: the northern plains, central India and the southern peninsula. These get more rain than Rohida is used to, so plant it only on raised, sandy or sloping, free-draining land. In the south, only the drier rain-shadow interior comes close to its usual rainfall.
• Not suitable: the east, the north-east, the west coast and the east coast, where the monsoon is too heavy and long for it, and the Himalaya, where winters are colder and wetter than it can stand.

Wherever you plant it, keep it away from low corners where monsoon water stands for days.

There is a bigger reason to plant it. The IUCN lists Rohida as Endangered. Trees have been cut for timber faster than they come back, young plants are grazed down, and the seed ripens just as the monsoon begins, so much of it rots before it can sprout.