Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre (PAPILIONACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Honge mara, Karanja.
Malayalam: Pugu, Punnu, Pungam.
Tamil: Kanuga.
Telugu: Ponga.
Description: Nearly evergreen trees, up to 15 m tall with greyish green bark. Leaves imparipinnate, 10-20 cm long; petioles 2-5 cm; leaflets opposite, 5-9, ovate to ovate-elliptic, up to 12 x 7 cm, acute or rounded at base, shortly acuminate at apex; petioles 0.4 – 0.6 cm long; main nerves 6-8 pairs, prominent beneath. Flowers in ca15 cm long, axillary racemes. Calyx campanulate. Corolla 1-1.5 cm long, pinkish-white; standard suborbicular. Petals glabrescent. Stamens 10, monodelphous. The ovary is subsessile, with an incurved style and a capitate stigma. The fruit is an indehiscent pod, obliquely oblong, approximately 6 x 3.5 cm in size, tapered at both ends, and smooth. The seed is solitary and reniform.
Flowering : March – June.
Fruiting : June – December.
Distribution: India: Western Peninsula. Common along river banks up to 1000 m. Often planted near villages and as an avenue tree. Throughout tropical Asia.
Uses:
- The seeds produce a valuable fatty oil commonly utilized for burning. The wood starts off white and ages to a cream color, exhibiting moderate strength but lacking durability. It finds applications in crafting yokes for bullock carts, ploughs, solid cartwheels, rafters for thatched cottages, as well as in the construction of oil mills, furniture, and various small turnery articles. The wood is used as a fuel. The wood ash is reported to be used in dyeing. The stem bark is fibrous and is used for cordage. Leaves are lopped for fodder. The leaves are used as green manure. The dried flowers furnish manure for pot plants. The oil-cake left after expression of oil has high nitrogen content and is mostly used as manure. It is often grown as a roadside avenue tree. The tree is sued for afforestation, especially in water sheds, in drier part of the country.
- The seeds yield Pongam oil, which serves various industrial and medicinal purposes, including applications in leather dressing, soap and candle production, as well as for lubrication and illumination. Notably, a spray composed of a two percent solution of pongam oil-resin soap has been reported as effective in combating both the nymph and adult stages of the green bug affecting coffee plants. The plant is a host for lac insects.
- The twigs are used for cleaning teeth. Juice of roots used for cleaning teeth, foul ulcers, strengthening gums and closing fistulous sores; a paste of roots is used as a local application in scrofulous enlargements; juice of roots with coconut milk and lime water used in gonorrhoea; juice of roots by itself can also be given internally in gonorrhoea and urethritis; root rubbed into a paste with rice water is applied locally in enlarged scrotum and scrofulous enlargements; bark given internally in bleeding piles; decoction of the bark useful in beriberi; leaf galactagogue; juice of leaves prescribed in flatulence, dyspepsia, diarrhoea and gonorrhoea; a hot infusion of leaves used as medical bath for relieving rheumatic pains, and in treating foul ulcers and sores; leaves and chitraka (Plumbago zeylanica L.) mixed with pepper and salt are powdered and given with curd in leprosy; powdered seed and rind of pod are valued as febrifuge and tonic and used in bronchitis and whooping-cough; the seeds crushed to a paste are applied over leprous sores, skin diseases and painful rheumatic joints; seed oil (Pongam oil) is applied externally to scabies, herpes, sores, leucoderma and other skin diseases, internally it is used as stomachic and cholagogue in cases of dyspepsia with sluggish liver, mixed in equal parts with lemon or lime juice it is useful in the treatment of rheumatism and psoriasis.
- In Ayurveda the bark, leaf and seed are used in oedema, poisoning, piles, worm infection, leprosy, uterine disorders, wounds, polyuria, diseases of head and stomach disorders. Oil named “Prithvisara Taila” with the expressed oil from the seeds and other ingredients is used in skin diseases and ulcers. An ointment known as “Tiktadya Ghrita” or “Tiktaka Ghritam,” formulated with leaves, fruits, and various other components, is employed for treating ulcers, wounds, and the initial phases of leprosy.