Saraca asoca (Roxb.) de Wilde

അശോകം

Family : Leguminosae (Caesalpinioideae)

Synonym :

Jonesia asoca Roxb.

Common Names : Ashokam, Hemapushpam,Vanjuulam, Asoka tree

Flowering Period : February – August

Distribution : India and Myanmar

Habitat : Evergreen forests, also grown as ornamental tree in the plains

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.