ABSTRACT
I. BAEL FRUIT Bael fruit (Aegle marmelos Correa) occupies an important place among minor fruits in India. It is grown throughout India as well as in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, and most of the Southeast Asian countries (1). Bael fruit was introduced into Europe from India in 1959 (2). It is a very hardy tree and can thrive even under adverse agroclimatic conditions (3). AU the parts of the tree, including stem, bark, root, leaves, and fruit at any stage of maturity and ripening, have some use or other. Various chemical constituents, namely, alkaloids, coumarins, and steroids, have been isolated and identified from different parts of the bael tree (4-7). The medicinal uses of bael fruit were reported by Sebastian and Bhandari (8). Antidiarrhetic activity of bael root was studied by Pitre and Srivastava (9). Aqueous decoction of bael root is reported to have hypoglycemic activity (10).
