Saraca asoca

Saraca asoca (Roxb.) de Wilde

Family     :  Fabaceae/leguminosae

Common Name  : അശോകം(Mal)

          अशोक(Hin)

                                  Asoka tree Eng)

     IUCN status          :   Least concern (LC) -

Trees, to 10 m high, bark 2-3 mm thick, surface brown or brownish-black. Leaves paripinnate, alternate; leaflets 6-12, opposite, 7-28.5 x 2-8.5 cm, narrowly oblong, oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, round, cuneate or acute, apex acute or acuminate, base obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; stipules 7-20 mm long, intra petiolar, scarious, ovate, connate; rachis 4-25 cm long, slender, pulvinate, glabrous; petiolule 2-10 mm long, stout, glabrous; lateral nerves 10-15 pairs, pinnate, arched towards the margin, slender, faint, intercostae reticulate, faint.

Flowers yellow-orange or red, in dense sessile paniculate corymbs, axillary to leaves or leaf scars; bracts ovate, small deciduous; bracteoles 4 mm long oblong-spathulate, ciliolate, coloured, subpersistent. Calyx 4 cm long, petalloid, cylindric, enclosing a lobed disc; lobes 4, ovate-oblong, unequal, spreading, imbricate. Petals 0. Stamens 7 or 8, much exserted, free; filaments long, filiform, coloured, glabrous; anthers versatile. Ovary half inferior, stipitate, the stipe adnate below to one side of the disc, pubescent; style incurved, glabrous, filiform; stigma small, capitate; ovules many. Fruit a pod 10-5 x 2-5 cm, flat, oblong, coriaceous or almost woody, tapering at both ends; seeds 2-8, 3-4 cm long, ovoid, slightly compressed.