The `Mango Tree` is one of the best-known and most popular trees of India. Being called as `Mangifera Indica` in science, the tree bear some very tasty and large fruits. There are a lot of names of this tree in various languages in India. Both in the languages of Bengali and Hindi, it is called as `Aam`. In Telugu, it is known as `Mamid` or `Mamada`; and the Tamil people know it as `Mangas` or `Ma`. The tree is considered to be a native of India, but presently it is found in all tropical countries.

Though the `Mango Tree` does not have scented flowers, still one can easily identify the tree by its leaves, bark and the shape. The tree can retain its leaves throughout the year. Normally, it spreads to a great extent to surplus its height and thus makes an excellent shade for everyone. For this great reason, people frequently plant it in the avenues and groves. The wild Mango grows from the seeds and produces some fruits that are good enough for the monkeys only. The wind cannot break the tough and bouncy stalks of the leaves of `Mango Tree` easily and their position provides the maximum shade to anyone beneath it. That`s why the ray of sunlight cannot go effortlessly through the deep and dark shadow of the `Mango Tree` .

Starting from the month of January to the month of March, the long and upright pyramids of flowers appear in the `Mango Tree`. The stems of the tree are fatty, green in colour and wavy. They can bear numerous retreating side stems. Each of these stems has a lot of little and stalked flowers. The flowers have four or five petals and are yellow-greenish in colour. The petals have orange stripes on them. Amongst the hundreds of thousands of flowers that appear in the tree, only a few have the ability to produce fruits. These flowers are the perfect ones only. The fruits take two to three months to get matured and they enormously vary from one tree to another.

The normal fruiting period of the `Mango Tree` is from the month of May to July, but one can obtain fruit from them almost every month of the year. The tree has some varieties that produce fruits twice and even three times in every twelve months. The best fruits that people can have, derive from the embedded trees. These are smaller in size and also live shorter than the wild Mangos. These are the trees from which people can get the great variety named `Alphonso`. The Mangos can be of different weights. Starting from 170gms to 1.4 kg, the fruit has a tough and thin skin that can be of green or yellow or red in colour. They contain luscious flesh that is creamy white, yellow or deep salmon in colour. Sometimes the flesh is like fibres and sometimes it`s very smooth.

In the Hindu religion, mango tree has a lot of importance. To the Hindus, it is an alteration of the God Prajapati, the Lord of all creatures. That`s why; the Hindus use the twigs as toothbrushes and the leaves as spoons for the pouring of libations. In another occasion, the rooms in which marriage ceremonies are held are festooned with Mango leaves. The wood is also considered as sacred because it is included in funeral pyres. The Hindus also dedicate the flowers of the tree to the Moon on the second day of the Bengali month, `Maagh` and to Madan, the Indian counterpart of Cupid.

Apart from the delicacy of the fruit, the tree has some other valuable properties as well. The timber of this tree is quite soft and durable and thus very good for planking and making packing cases and tea boxes. The bark can produce a gum that is used in medicine. The immature fruit can also be used, as a treat to Opthalmia and some people believe that a tonic prepared from the ripe fruit, can be proved good for the liver. Not only these, various parts of the tree are used to stop bleeding and prescribed in cases of snakebite and scorpion-sting as well.