Digital Garden

Persea americana Mill.

വെണ്ണപ്പഴം

Family : LAURACEAE

Synonym : Persea gratissima Gaertn.

Common Names : Vennappazham, Avocado Pear, Alligator Pear, Aguacate, Abacate, Soldier's Butter

Flowering Period : March-September

Distribution : Native of Tropical America; extensively cultivated in the tropics

Habitat : Grown in homesteads

Uses : Fruits edible. A tea can be made from the leaves. An oral infusion of the leaves is used to treat dysentery. It is also used for relieving coughs, lowering blood pressure, treating liver obstructions, promoting menstrual flow. The mashed fruit pulp is a nourishing food that is considered to have aphrodisiac properties. From unripe fruit used to induce abortion. Used externally, the pulp is cooling and soothing to the skin - it is applied to suppurating wounds and to the scalp to promote hair growth. The skin of the fruit has anti-helmintic properties and is used traditionally for expelling worms. A reddish-brown dye obtained from the seed is used for marking clothes.

Key Characters :

Trees, to 15 m high. Leaf buds perulate with imbricate scales. Leaves simple, alternate, estipulate; petiole to 20 mm long, slender, glabrous; lamina 8-18 x 4-6 cm, elliptic, elliptic-ovate or elliptic-oblong, base attenuate, apex obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; lateral nerves 5-8 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae reticulate. Flowers bisexual, subsessile, greenish, in compact terminal panicles on branchlets; perianth tomentose, tube turbinate, lobes 3+3; stamens 9, perfect, those of the first and second row opposite the perianth lobes, introrse, those of third row opposite the first row, extrorse with slender filaments and a pair of stipitate glands at their base; staminodes of fourth row opposite the second row, cordate, stipitate; ovary superior, sessile, hairy; style slender; stigma simple. Fruit a berry, 10 x 8 cm, with copious mesocarp; seed 5 x 1.5 cm.