794

Saraca asoca (Roxb.) Wilde.

Synonym	:	Jonesia asoca Roxb.
Family	:	Leguminosae
Local name	:	English - Asoka tree Malayalam - Ashokam
Flowering and fruiting period	:	February-August
Distribution	:	India and Myanmar
Distribution in Kerala	:	All Districts
Habitat	:	Evergreen forests, also grown as ornamental tree in the plains
IUCN Status	:	Vulnerable
Uses	:	Traditionally used in Indian Ayurveda as a uterine tonic and has been indicated in menstrual irregularities ESP in DUB. Used   to be a uterine stimulant and increases uterine contractions. It also stimulates the ovarian tissue.
Key Botanical Characters: Trees,, surface brown or brownish-black. Leaves paripinnate, alternate; leaflets, opposite, narrowly oblong, oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, round, cuneate or acute, apex acute or acuminate, base obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous. intra petiolar, scarious, ovate, connate; rachis slender, pulvinate, glabrous; petiolule stout, glabrous. Flowers bisexual, yellow-orange or red, in dense sessile paniculate corymbs, axillary to leaves or leaf scars. Calyx, petalloid, cylindric, enclosing 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, capitate; ovules many. Fruit a pod, flat, oblong, coriaceous or almost woody, tapering at both ends; continuous within; seeds 2-8,ovoid, slightly compressed.