Botany names

Description - A large evergreen tree (30 to 40 feet) with crooked stem and poplar-like glossy, dark-green leaves. Flowers are large, yellow and cinnamon red, bell-shaped, resembling those of the vegetable plant bhendi, or cotton plant. They appear singly, off and on, throughout the year. Peak flowering is in cold weather. the fruit is a capsule, Capsule brown, globose or oblong, Pods are filled with white papery seeds.

Chemical Constituents- Plant contains populneol. Heart-wood contains calycopterin, sesquiterpenoid, quinones thespesone, thespone and mansonens C-F. Leaves contain n-alkanes, lupeonol, lupeol. Flowers contain gossypol, kaempferol, rutin. Flowers and capsule contain colouring principles having glucosides. Also quercetin, gossypitin and Beta-sitosterol are reported. Seeds contain fatty oil.

Use - Bark, leaves, flowers and fruits used in cutaneous affections. Seed oil used in skin troubles. Bark, roots and fruits are astringent, used in dysentery and haemorrhoids. Its root is taken as a tonic Seeds purgative and yield a thick oil. In Malaya, the deep-red heartwood is said to be used as a remedy in heart attacks.