Commiphora wightii (
Guggal,
Guggul or
Mukul myrrh tree) is a
flowering plantThe flowering plants or angiosperms are the most diverse group of land plants. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of seed plants...
in the family
BurseraceaeBurseraceae is a moderately sized family of 17-18 genera and about 540 species of flowering plants. The actual numbers differ according to the time period in which a given source is written describing this family. The Burseraceae is also known as the Torchwood family, the frankincense and myrrh...
. The guggul plant may be found from northern Africa to
central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
, but is most common in northern
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. It prefers
aridA region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...
and
semi-aridA Semi-arid climate or steppe climate generally describes climatic regions that receive low annual rainfall . A more precise definition is given by the Köppen climate classification that treats steppe climates as intermediates between the desert climates and humid climates in ecological...
climates and is tolerant of poor
soilSoil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics. It is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and...
.In Indian languages, it is known by various names like guggul in Hindi, gukkulu and maishakshi in Tamil, guggulu in Sanskrit and Indian bdellium in English.
It is a
shrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
or small
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
, reaching a maximum height of 4 m, with thin papery
barkBark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
.
Commiphora wightii (
Guggal,
Guggul or
Mukul myrrh tree) is a
flowering plantThe flowering plants or angiosperms are the most diverse group of land plants. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of seed plants...
in the family
BurseraceaeBurseraceae is a moderately sized family of 17-18 genera and about 540 species of flowering plants. The actual numbers differ according to the time period in which a given source is written describing this family. The Burseraceae is also known as the Torchwood family, the frankincense and myrrh...
. The guggul plant may be found from northern Africa to
central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
, but is most common in northern
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. It prefers
aridA region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...
and
semi-aridA Semi-arid climate or steppe climate generally describes climatic regions that receive low annual rainfall . A more precise definition is given by the Köppen climate classification that treats steppe climates as intermediates between the desert climates and humid climates in ecological...
climates and is tolerant of poor
soilSoil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics. It is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and...
.In Indian languages, it is known by various names like guggul in Hindi, gukkulu and maishakshi in Tamil, guggulu in Sanskrit and Indian bdellium in English.
It is a
shrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
or small
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
, reaching a maximum height of 4 m, with thin papery
barkBark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
. The branches are
thorny. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are simple or trifoliate, the leaflets ovate, 1–5 cm long, 0.5–2.5 cm broad, irregularly toothed. It is
gynodioeciousPlant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, with some plants bearing bisexual and male
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s, and others with female flowers. The individual flowers are red to pink, with four small petals.
The use of plants in the treatment of diseases occupies an important place in Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India. The Atharva Veda, one of the four well-known Holy Scriptures (Vedas) of the Hindus, is the earliest reference to the medicinal and therapeutic properties of guggul. The plant Commiphora wightii provides oleo gum resin mentioned by Sushruta (3000 year ago) as being a valuable drug. The oleo gum resin commonly known as “gum guggul” or “Indian myrrh” is the economically important product of Indian bdellium. The oleo gum is collected as exudates from woody stem.But Guggal (Commiphora weghtii), as it is locally known, has become so scarce because of its overuse in its two habitats in India where its is found —
GujaratGujarat is the westernmost state in India. It is home to the Gujarati speaking people of India. The state encompasses major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization such as Lothal and Dholavira. Gujarat played an important role in the economic history of India throughout the history of India...
and
RajasthanRājasthān is the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with Pakistan...
that the
World Conservation UnionThe International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation.Founded in 1948, its headquarters is located in the Lake Geneva area in Gland, Switzerland...
(IUCN) has enlisted it in its
Red Data ListThe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1948, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is the world's main authority on the conservation...
of endangered species.
The extract, called gugulipid, guggulipid or guglipid, comes from the guggal or guggul tree and has been used in Ayurvedic medicine, a traditional Hindu medicine, for nearly 3,000 years in India.
Cultivation and uses
Guggul is sought for its gummy
resinResin is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. It is valued for its chemical constituents and uses, such as varnishes and adhesives, as an important source of raw materials for organic synthesis, or for incense and perfume. Fossilized resins are the source of amber...
, which is harvested from the plant's bark through the process of
tappingRubber tapping is the process by which rubber is gathered. An incision is made in the bark of a rubber tree, which cuts through thelanting cycle to optimise the latex yield....
. In
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
and
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
, guggul is cultivated commercially. The resin of the guggul plant, known as
gum guggulu, has a fragrance similar to
myrrhMyrrh is a reddish-brown resinous material, the dried sap of a number of trees, but primarily from Commiphora myrrha, which is native to Yemen, Somalia, the eastern parts of Ethiopia, and Commiphora gileadensis, which is native to Jordan...
and is commonly used in
incenseIncense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term incense refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces....
and perfumes. It is the same product that was known in
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
, ancient Greek and Latin sources as
bdelliumBdellium is an aromatic gum like myrrh that is exuded from a tree. A medieval Arab writer first made the identification with gum guggul, the species Commiphora wightii, although "bdellium" has also been used to identify the African species C. africana and at least one other Indian species, C....
.
Guggulipid
Guggulipid, gugulipid or guglipid is the extract extracted from the sap or resin of Guggal tree also known as mukul myrrh tree (Commiphora mukul) it secretes a resinous material called gum guggul.
Guggul Dhoop
Guggul can be purchased in a loosely packed form called Dhoop, an
incense from Indiaright|thumb|320px|Incense being sold in an Indian market in [[Bangalore]]Indian incense is known as agarbattī in Hindi and other Indian languages. India has a rich tradition of incense making that goes back millenia...
, which is then burned over hot coals. This produces a fragrant dense smoke. The burning coals which produces the smoke is carried around in different rooms and held in all the corners of the room for a few seconds. This is said to drives away mosquitoes, especially from the dark corners. Some believe it to thus drive away evil spirits as well as remove the evil eye from the home and its family members.
Guggul Conservation
Unfortunately the plant Commiphora wightii has become endangered because of its slow growing nature, poor seed setting, lack of cultivation, poor seed germination rate and excessive and unscientific tapping for its gum resin by the pharmaceutical industries and religious purposes.Efforts have been made to conserve this valuable plant species. Dr. Vineet Soni is working from last 9 years to save guggul plants through biotechnological and community based conservation. His "Save Guggul Movement" in Rajasthan state receiving warm appriciation from rural and tirbal peoples of Rajasthan. He is running a series of awareness programs in various parts of Rajasthan to make people aware about the importance and conservation of guggul plants. Government of India has banned the export of the species. Some efforts have also been done to develop a protocol for propagation of guggul plants using plant tissue culture technique.
External links