Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.

പ്ലാവ്

Family : Moraceae

Synonym : Artocarpus integrifolius Wight.

Common Names : Plavu, Jack fruit tree

Flowering Period : November – April

Distribution : Widely cultivated in the tropics, origin is probably South India

Habitat : Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, also widely

Uses : Fruits edible, aphrodisiac, timber yielding, nut edible, remedy for skin disorders. The ripe fruit may be eaten raw. Timber is used for making furniture and musical instruments. Heartwood yields a yellow dye. The bark is used for tanning and the leaves are eaten by cattle. Heated leaves can be used to treat wounds, and the ash, when burned with maize and coconut shell can treat ulcers. By mixing vinegar and latex, it can promote healing of abscesses, snakebite and glandular swellings. In the treatment against skin diseases and asthma, the root is used. Its extraction is used to treat fever and diarrhoea.

Key Characters :

Evergreen tree with bark blackish-grey, mottled with green and black having exudation milky white latex. Leaves are simple, alternate, obovate-oblong, margin entire, glabrous and shining above and scabrous beneath. Flowers unisexual, minute, yellowish-green, in spikes enclosed by spathe-like bracts, male from young branches, catkin; perianth 2-lobed, stamen 1. Female catkins from the trunk ovary superior. Fruit a sorosis, yellowish-green.