Its name has roots in the Greek aphanos, invisible; Greek mixis, mating; Greek poly, many; Greek stachys, branch, referring to the much-branched male flowering shoot.
The tree has long imparipinnate compound leaves (that is having an unpaired terminal leaflet), alternately arranged and made up of 9-21 leaflets, each leaflet being oblong-elliptic, and wavy on the margins, with an acute tip.
Flower clusters occur in leaf-axils. Flowers have 5 nearly circular sepals,. Its female flowering shoots are up to 110 cm long, while male and bisexual flowering shoots are up to 50 cm long. Its sweetly scented flowers are 4 x 9 mm across and produced in panicles, with cream to yellow coloured petals. Flowers are pollinated by insects.
Its pink-red-purplish fruits grow in clusters, are round to pear-shaped, and 2 x 4 cm across. Each fruit bears 1 - 3 seeds that are covered with brownish-red or orange oily pulp, and have a dark brown or black seed coat. The fruits split into 3 paets on maturity to reveal the pulp. However the fruits are poisonous to humans.
The plant can be propagated by seeds.
It grows in lowlands and hill forests over a wide range of soils from sandy to clayey.
Like many other plants, the seeds produce an oil content of 40-44% . The oil is inedible but ideal for bio-fuel that is refined to get bio-diesel.
The Pithraj Tree is said to be popular in traditional Indian medicine, like Ayurveda, The bark, is used for treatment of ulcers, liver and spleen problems.
Oil extracted from the seeds is medicinal and applied externally for rheumatism and skin diseases.
Common name: Pithraj tree
Botanical name: Aphanamixis polystachya
Family: Meliaceae
Native Distribution: From India, Sri Lanka, southern China, Taiwan, Bhutan, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific islands.
Source:
Reference
Plants of Singapore
