CSIR-NEERI Biodiversity Portal

PALASH

Butea monosperma(Lam.)

Botanical name	: Butea monosperma Lam.
Synonym	: Butea frondosa Koenig ex Roxb.
Vernacular name	: Palash/ Flame of the forest
Family	: Fabaceae (Caesalpinioideae)
About the Tree	: Butea monosperma is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree. So called "the flame of the forest" due to the bright orange and scarlet colors of its flowers. Butea monosperma native to tropical and sub-tropical parts of India and Asia.
Height	: 10-15 m Tall
Bark	: Irregular branches bark rough, ash coloured, and young parts downy.
Leaf	: The compound leaves with 8-16 cm petiole and three leathery leaflets form a patchy open crown, each leaflet 10-20 cm long.
Flower	: Flowers are showy, bright orange in clusters on leafless branches. The Calyx of flower is 13 mm long, flowers are large, in a rigid racemes 15 cm long, deciduous, olive-green, densely velvety outside, clothed with silky hairs. Corolla is 3.8-5 cm long, clothed with silky, silvery hairs at outside. Orange or salmon colored, standard 2.5 cm broad, beaked.
Fruits	: The fruit is a flat legume. Pods are stalked12.5-20 by 2.5-5 cm, thickened at the sutures with a single seed. Young pods have a lot of hair, a velvety cover and mature pods hang down.
Season	: The leaves of tree loses with the flowers develop, in month of January - March. Fruit form quickly after flowers and ripe just before the rains
Medicinal Properties Peculiar Character	: Antidiarrhoeal, antimicrobial, wound healing, and hepatoprotective, antihypertenstive, antitumor, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, free radical scavenging activity. : Flowers yields a brilliant yellow coloring matter due to presence of chalcones. The flowers are used to prepare a traditional Holi colour. It is also used as a dyeing color for fabric.