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Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.

Synonyms	:	Artocarpus brasiliensis Ortega
Family	:	Moraceae
Local Name	:	English - Jack fruit tree Malayalam – Plavu
Flowering and Fruiting Period	:	November-April
Distribution	:	Widely cultivated in the tropics, origin is probably South India
Distribution  in Kerala	:	All Districts
Habitat	:	Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, also widely cultivated
Uses	:	Fruit and seed can be eaten. The root extract of jackfruit used as a remedy against skin disease, asthma and fever.
Key Botanical Characters:  Evergreen trees to 25 m high, bark 10-12 mm thick, blackish-grey, mottled with green and black, exfoliating in large thick flakes, exfoliated surface orange-red; exudation milky white latex; trunk with warty tubercles; branchlets glabrous. Leaves simple, alternate, Flowers unisexual, minute, yellowish-green, in spikes enclosed by spathe-like bracts, male from young branches, catkin narrow-cylindric; perianth 2-lobed, puberulous; stamen 1; filament somewhat flattened, stout; anthers ovate-oblong; female catkins from the trunk and mature branches, more massive, perianth with strongly projecting conical apex; ovary 0.3 mm, superior, globose-obovoid; style exserted; stigma spathulate. Fruit a sorosis 30-45 x 20-25 cm, oblong, tuberculate, tubercles conical yellowish-green, fruiting perianth yellow to light orange, fleshy; seeds 10-12 x 8-10 mm, elliptic-oblong, smooth, glossy.