Flacourtia indica (Burm. F.) Merr. (FLACOURTIACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Hettari mulli.
Malayalam: Cherru-mullikka-chedi, Kuramullu, Kuramulli.
Tamil: Kattukalai, Kodumundi, Sottukalai.
Description: Shrubs or small trees that shed their leaves; in mature plants, the trunk is frequently equipped with branched thorns, while juvenile shoots and branches feature simple thorns. Leaves usually clusterd towards apices on older branches, variable, obovate, ovate, oblong or suborbicular, 1.5 – 7 x 1-4 cm, usually cuneate at base, acute, obtuse or emerginate at apex, membranous to sub coriaceous; petioles 3-10 mm long; secondary nerves 4-6 pairs. Flowers dioecious, solitary or few in axillary racemose clusters or terminating in short lateral 3-4-leaved thorny twigs or in tomentose panicles up to 3 cm long, bracteate, yellowish green. Sepals 4-5, slightly connate at base, ovate, obtuse, subglabrous outside, hairy inside. Male flowers: Stamens numerous; anthers versatile; disc lobed. Female flowers: Disc entire; ovary globular with 3-6 radiating styles; stigma bilobed, recurved. Fruit a berry, ellipsoid to subglobose, 5-10 mm across, with 6-7 pyrenes, dark purple or red when ripe. Seeds trigonous, pale yellow to brown.
Flowering : December- March.
Fruiting : May– August.
Distribution: India: Throughout in dry thickets, scrub jungles, dry deciduous and mixed forests, up to 1200 m. S.E. Asia and tropical Africa.
Uses: Fruits of some varieties are sweet and eaten raw. Twiggy forms are sometimes grown as impenctrable hedges. Root antidote for snakebite; bark astringent, diuretic, antiperiodic, used in dysentery and eczema, with sesame oil used as liniment in gout and rheumatism; gum anticholerin; fruit appetizer and digestive, used in jaundice and enlargement of spleen.