Butea monosperma (Flame of the Forest)

English Common Name(s): Flame of the Forest

Hindi Name(s): पलाश

Botanical Name: Butea monosperma (Lam.) Kuntze

Synonyms: Butea frondosa K.D. Koenig ex Roxb., Butea frondosa Roxb. ex Willd., Butea monosperma Kuntze, Erythrina monosperma Lam., Plaso monosperma (Lam.) Kuntze

Family: Fabaceae

Distribution: Indian Subcontinent, South China to Indo-China.

Uses: This tree is suitable for planting in small groups in a garden or a park. Butea gum, Bengal kino or Chunia-gond, an exudate from the tannin-rich vesicles in the bark, is used medicinally. It is a powerful astringent, used in the treatment of diarrhoea and wounds. The flowers yield a brilliant but short-lasting yellow dye, widely used by the natives, especially during the Holi festival [1].

Butea monosperma (Flame of the Forest)

A small to medium-sized, slow-growing, deciduous tree, usually reaching a height of 5-15 metres. Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate, leaflets unequal, broadly obovate, thickly leathery. Flowers bright flaming scarlet orange with dark olive-green to black calyces, with a shape resembling a parrot’s beak. Fruit oblong, 12-15 cm long, flattened, adpressed silvery gray puberulent, apex rounded.

Flowering & Fruiting: December-May.

Etymology: The genus name “Butea” named after John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792), who was a botanist, a patron of science as well as of literature and art, studied at Eton, statesman, 1737 he was elected one of the representative peers of Scotland, Knight of the Thistle, one of the lords of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales, Prime Minister 1762-1763, plants-man, introduced many new species to Kew, author of Botanical Tables, containing the different families of British plants [11]. The specific epithet “monosperma” comes from two Greek words: mono meaning single and sperma meaning seed, refers to its single-seeded pods.