Semal Musli
Description :
A large sized tall, deciduous tree having straight, buttressed trunk with a clear bole and widespread branches. The trunk and branch bark is gray in colour having hard, sharp and conical prickles. Leaves are large, deciduous, digitate and glabrous. Leaflets 3-9, entire, lanceolate or oval, cuspidate and tip is acute. Petiole is long (up to 20 cm), petiolules 1,2-2.5 cm long, and stipules small and caducous. Flowers solitary or clustered, axillary or sub-terminal, fascicles at or near the ends of the branches, when the tree is bare of leaves. Calyx is cup-shaped usually 3 lobed. Corolla red or white, petals 5, oblong, recurved, fleshy, tomentose on the out side and sparingly pubescent inner. Staminal tube is short, more than 60 in 5 bundles. Ovary conical, glabrous, stigma 5, capsule ovoid, 5 valued dehiscing by 5 leathery, woody valves and lined with white silky hairs. Seeds are numerous, long, ovoid, black or gray in colour and packed in white cotton.
Details:
Botanical Name: Bombax Malabaricum
Hindi Name :Semal,Pagun,Mochrus
English Name :Silk Cotton Tree,Bombax ceiba, Simul tree
Sanskrit Name : Shalmali
Telugu Name : Bürugu Cettu
Common Name :Silk Cotton Tree, Red Kapok Tree, Shimul, Mochras (Gum),sambali, sāmali
Malayalam Name : mullilave
French Name : Arbre En soie De Coton
Arabic Name : Musli Sembhal, Samaghul Mochras (Gum)
Latin Name: Bombax ceiba
Nepali Name: Simal
Family Name: Bombacaceae
Part Used : Root,Pods
Medicinal Uses:
- The roots are sweet, cooling, stimulant, restorative, astringent, alternative, aphrodisiac, demulcent, emetic and tonic. It is used in the treatment of diarrhea, dysentery, menorrhagia, styptic and for wounds.
- The gum is cooling, astringent, stimulant, aphrodisiac, tonic and demulcent in nature. It is useful in dysentery, hemoptysis, pulmonary tuberculosis, influenza, burning sensation, menorrhagia and enteritis.
- Bark is mucilaginous, demulcent, emetic and tonic. Used for healing wounds and to stop bleeding.
- Flowers are astringent and good for skin troubles and haemorrhoids.
- Seeds are useful in treating gonorrhea and chronic cystitis. A paste made out of prickles is god for restoring skin color especially on the face. Young fruits are useful in calculus affections, chronic inflammations and ulceration of bladder and kidney.