Delonix Regia

Botanical Name: Delonix Regia (Hook.) Raf.

Family: Fabaceae
Common Name: Flame Tree

English Name: Royal Poinciana, peacock flower

Description: It is a fast-growing tree with an umbrella shaped, spreading crown with the long, nearly horizontal branches forming a diameter that is wider than the tree’s height. Usually evergreen, the trees are deciduous in areas where the dry season is long and pronounced. The tree grows 10 - 18 metres tall, with a large, buttressed bole that can attain a girth of up to 2 metres. Tree to 15m high, branchlets warty puberulous. Leaves bi-pinnate alternate, stipules small lateral, rachis 15-20cm long  slender pulvinate, puberulent pinnal 8-20 pairs opposite or subopposite 2.7-10cm slender pulvinate puberulent, a sessile gland seen between each pinnae on upper side leaflets 18-50 sessile opposite, laming 0.4-0.8 x 0.2-0.35cm oblong or linear-oblong base oblique, apex obtuse margin entire puberulent above and pubescent beneath membranous, nerves and nervules obscure. Flowers bisexual, crimsom in terminal or lateral corymbose panicles calyx tube very short lobes 5, valvate subequal petals 5 orbicular, imbricate margines fimbriate claws yellow, upper, patal dissimilar and white streaked with red and yellow stanens 10, free declinate, long exserted, filaments villous below, anthers uniform ovary half inferior subsessile, ovules many style filiform stigma truncate ciliolate, fruit a pod,40x6cm, flat, eloate woody, seed many, oblong, transverse.

Flowering & Fruiting: February-July

Distribution: Africa - Madagascar. Native of Madagascar now cultivated throughout the tropics.

IUCN: Unknown: Least Concern. Delonix regia (Flame Tree) (iucnredlist.org)

District: All Districts of Tamil Nadu

Uses: It contains around 48% carbohydrate, 8.7% protein and 17.2% fats, plus a good range of minerals, though rather high in sodium. Antinutritional compounds such as tannins, saponins and oxalates are present, but in lower concentrations than in many commonly eaten foods. A gum obtained from the tree is used in the food industry. An aqueous extract of the flowers is active against roundworm. A leaf decoction presumably has anti-rheumatic effects. In eastern Nigeria the leaves are used traditionally for treating pain (Ezeja et al., 2012).

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