Saraca asoca (Roxb.) de Wilde

അശോകം

Family
:
Leguminosae (Caesalpinioideae)
Synonym
:
Jonesia asoca Roxb.
Common Names
:
Asoka Tree, Hemapushpam, Vanjuulam
Flowering Period
:
February – August
Distribution
:
India and Myanmar
Habitat
:
Evergreen forests, also grown as ornamental tree in the plains
Habit
:
Tree
Uses
:

Sacred Indian plant, Ayurvedic, ornamental. The juice obtained from boiling the bark is a cure for some ailments of women, and a pulp of the blossoms is one of the remedies used for dysentery.   

Key Characters
:

Saraca asoca are trees with bark surface brown or brownish-black. Leaves paripinnate, alternate; leaflets opposite, narrowly oblong,  margin entire. Flowers bisexual, yellow-orange or red, in dense sessile paniculate corymbs. Calyx petalloid, cylindric; lobes 4, ovate-oblong, imbricate. Petals 0. Stamens 7 or 8, coloured; anthers versatile. Ovary half inferior, stipitate. Fruit a pod, flat, oblong.