Saraca asoca

 Botanical Name:  Saraca asoca (Roxb.) W.J.de Wilde

Family: Fabaceae

Common Name: Ashokam, Vanjuulam

English Name: Ashok tree

Description: A middle sized handsome tree. Leaves paripinnate, glabrous, leaflets 4-5 pairs, 10- 20 cm long, margin slightly wavy. Flowers are fragrant, orange scarlet in terminal or axillary racemes. Pods are 5 - 10 inch compresed, tapering at the both ends. Very beautiful tree when flowers. The purplish pink new leaves appear at the intervals. Leaves  paripinnate, alternate; leaflets 6-12, opposite, 7-28.5x 2-8.5 cm, narrowly  oblong, oblong-ovate or ovate- lanceolate, round, cuneate or acute, apex acute or acuminate, base obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; stipules 7-20 mm long, intra petiolar, scarious, ovate, connate;rachis 4-25 cm long, slender,, pulvinate, glabrous; petiolule 2-10 mm long, stout, glabrous; lateral nerves 10-15 pairs, pinnate, arched towards the margin, slender, faint, intercostae reticulate,faint. Flowers bisexual, yellow-orange or red, in dense sessile paniculate corymbs, axilly to leaves or leaf scars; bracts ovate, small deciduous; bracteoles 4 mm long oblong- spathulate, ciliolate, coloured, subpersistent. Calyx 4 cm long, petalloid, cylindric, encloses a lobed disc; lobes 4, ovate- oblong, unequal, spreading, imbricate. Petals 0. Stamens 7 or 8, much exserted, free; filaments long, filiform, coloured, glabrous; anthers versatile. Ovary half inferior, stipitate, the stipe adnate below to one side of the disc, pubescent; style incurved, glabrous, filiform; stigma small, capitates;ovules many. Fruit a pod 10-5 x2-5 cm, flat, oblong, coriaceous or almost woody, tapering at both ends; continuous within; seeds2-8, 3.8 cm long, ovoid, slightly compressed.

Flowering & Fruiting: February –August

Distribution: E. Asia - India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar.

IUCN: Vulnerable under criteria B1+2c. Saraca asoca (iucnredlist.org)

District: All Districts

Uses: Ashoka is a very popular medicinal herb in Ayurveda, where it is said to be particularly useful for treating a range of conditions related to the female reproductive system. The bark is antiabortive, antibacterial, antiinflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, demulcent, diuretic, strongly haemostatic, oxytocic, neural tonic, refrigerent, sedative, uterine tonic, vermicidal. The seeds are used in the treatment of urinary discharges. The plant has been shown to stimulate the endometrium and ovarian tissue, and to be useful in treating disorders such as menorrhagia, dysmenorrhoea, premenstrual syndrome, abnormal bleeding and threatened abortion.

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