Basil
also known as French Basil or Sweet Basil or Tulsi is an erect glabrous herb,
30-90 cm high is indigenous to India. The leaves of basil have numerous oil
glands with aromatic volatile oil. The herb bears cluster of small white lipped
flowers in racemes. The freshly picked bright green leaves turns brownish green
when dried and become brittle and curled. The major types are American Basil,
French Basil, Egyptian Basil and Indian Basil.
It
is indigenous to the lower hills of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and is
cultivated throughout India. It is also cultivated in Southern France, Egypt,
Belgium, Hungary, and other Mediterranean countries and also in USA.
The
dried leaves and tender four sided stems are used as spice for flavouring and
for extraction of essential oil. Apart from flavouring numerous foods, it is
used for seasoning in tomato paste products. The sweet basil oil is widely used
in perfumery compounds. It has application in areas of medicine and also used
as an insecticide and bactericide.
Spanish
: Alba Laca French : Basilic German : Basilienkraut Swedish : Basilkort Arabic
: Raihan Dutch : Basilicum Italian : Basilico Portuguese : Manjericao Russian :
Basilik Japanese : Meboki Chinese : Lo-le Thai : Horapa,Horapha English : Sweet
Basil Assamese : Tulasii Hindi : Bawari
bawari,Ban thulasi, �Tulsi Bengali : Babui tulsi Gujarati : Sabje Kannada : Amli,
Huli Malayalam : Pachcha/sivatulasi Marathi : Sabja/Tulasa Oriya : durlabha
Punjabi : Imli, Tulasigidda,Tulasi Sanskrit : Barbari,Bana thulasi,Tungi Tamil
:Tulasi,Tirunirrippachai Telugu : Tulsi-chettu Urdu : Imli