Jaam or Black plum, Syzygium cumini

Jaam or Black plum (Syzygium cumini, family: Myrtaceae) is a medium or large-sized evergreen with spreading and upright branches. The trunk is straight, grey in color and rough. The fruits of the plant is very juicy, nice-colored, tasty and nutritious too. It is a very common tree in Bangladesh. The plant is an evergreen and shadow-giving tree. So it is planted in parks and gardens and beside the avenue and highways. It is found throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia as well as Australia. The original home of the plant is considered as India.  

Other names: Indian black berry, Jamun, Jambu

Leaves are simple, green, glabrous, coriaceous, ovate-oblong, 6-15 cm long and 3-9 cm wide, apex pointed, alternate, petioled.

Propagation of the plant is caused by seeds and cuttings. Fruits, roots, leaves, seeds and barks are used in dysentery, diabetes, cough, high blood pressure and lever diseases. A kind of wine can be produced from its juicy fruits. Fruit contains starch, protein, fats, mineral salt and Vitamin B and C. Wood is durable and excellent as fuel but not good enough to make furniture.

Flowers are whitish, scented, sessile. Flowering occurs in the beginning of summer. It blooms in cluster on cyme inflorescence arising from old stem. 

Fruit is berry, ovoid or round, very juicy, green when raw, deep violet or blackish when ripe. Fruits ripe in late summer. The Hindus and Buddhist of the subcontinent regarded the tree as sacred one. They plant the tree in the courtyard of their shrine. The tree is well described by ancient Sanskrit and Bengali poets. It is called Jambulah in Sanskrit.