Pala indigo plant

Description

Wrightia tinctoria, Pala indigo plant or dyer's oleander, is a flowering plant species in the genus Wrightia found in India, southeast Asia and Australia. It is found in dry and moist regions in its distribution. Various parts of the plant have been used in traditional medicine, but there is no scientific evidence it is effective or safe for treating any disease. It is a small to medium-sized deciduous shrub or tree, ranging from 3–15 m (10–49 ft) in height but also reaching up to 18 m. The bark is smooth, yellowish-brown and about 10 mm thick, producing a milky-white latex. Leaves are simple, oppositely arranged, ovate, obtusely acuminate and are 10–20 cm long and 5 cm wide. Leaves are glabrous and sometimes pubescent beneath. Leaf stalks are very short. The flowers appear (in India) from March to May, peaking from April to June. White flowers appear in corymb-like cymes, 5–15 cm across, at the end of branches. Flowers have five white petals 2–3 cm long which turn creamish yellow as they age. The flowers have oblong petals which are rounded at the tip, and are similar to flowers of frangipani. Fruiting is in August and the fruit is cylindrical, blackish-green speckled with white, long horn-like and united at tip. The seeds are brown and flat with bunch of white hairs. Seed dispersal is by wind and pollination is by insects. In his 1862 book on timber trees of South Asia, Edward Balfour mentions its distribution across the then Madras Presidency of British India especially in the Coimbatore jungles, and reports that it was "very common in all forests of Bombay". In the same book, Balfour quotes William Roxburgh's comparison of the whiteness of the wood as "coming nearer to ivory than any I know". Earlier in 1824, the plant specimens were presented by the British East India Company to the Royal Horticultural Society as illustrated and recorded in botanical register founded by Sydenham Edwards and at the time published by James Ridgway. Wrightia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae, first described as a genus in 1810. It native to tropical Africa, China, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Papuasia, and Australia. The species are all small trees or shrubs. The genus was named for William Wright (1735-1819), Scottish physician and botanist, by Robert Brown. Wrightia antidysenterica has long been known in Indian Ayurvedic tradition, and is called "kuţaja" in Sanskrit.