Bixa orellana L.

കുരങ്ങ് മഞ്ഞൾ

Family : BIXACEAE

Synonym :

Bixa americana Poir.

Common Names : Monkey-mailanchi, Kunkumam, Kurangumanjal, Sindooram, Annatto, Lipstick tree

Flowering Period : June-November

Distribution : Originally from Tropical America; now widespread in the tropics

Habitat : Grown as ornamental plant

Uses : The ground seed is red and this can be used to colour foods. A yellow colour is obtained from the seed coat, and this is widely used as a colouring in margarines etc in the food industry. A decoction of the leaves is used as a treatment for dysentery. The leaves may also be used in baths to relieve muscular aches, fevers, colic or to get rid of worms in children. A red dye, known as annatto, is obtained from the fruit. The dye is used to colour cloth, and is also used by native people as a cosmetic for painting the skin and as a lipstick. It is also used in the cosmetic production of nail gloss, hair oil, lipstick and soap, as well as in the production of floor wax, furniture and shoe polish.

Key Characters :

Shrubs or small evergreen trees, 2-9 m high; young branches densely dark scaly; wood pale yellow, soft. Leaves alternate, ovate, subcordate or truncate at base, long-acuminate at apex, 7-24 x 4-16 cm, shining above, densely red- dotted, initially scaly beneath, glabrous later; lateral nerves 4 or 5 pairs; petioles slender, 4-10 cm long, stipules 5-6 mm long. Inflorescence a terminal corymb or panicle, 8-50 flowered, scaly; pedicels 7-10 mm long. Flowers 3-5 cm across. Sepals broadly ovate to suborbicular, concave, scaly, purple. Petals 5-7, unequal, obovate, rounded at apex, 2-3 x 1-2 cm, pink. Stamens many; filaments slender, yellow at base, red at apex; anthers purple. Ovary densely covered with thick red bristles; style 12-15 mm long, swollen above, red. Capsules globose or broadly ovoid, nearly truncate at base, abruptly short-acuminate at apex or elongate-ovate with narrowly long-acuminate apex, 2-4 x 1.5-3.5 cm, with dense long stiff but soft and flexible bristles, green when young, brownish red with age; seeds obpyramidal, ca 5 x 4-5 mm, orange-red.