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Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family   

   MT009 : Bombax ceiba L.

Plant Category : Tree
Melghat's Flora's Serial No. : 45
Synonym : Bombax aculeatum L.; Bombax ceiba Burm.f.; Bombax ceiba var. leiocarpum Robyns; Bombax heptaphyllum Cav.; Bombax malabaricum DC.; Bombax thorelii Gagnep.; Bombax tussacii Urb.; Gossampinus malabarica Merr.; Gossampinus rubra Buch.-Ham.; Gossampinus thorelii Bakh.; Melaleuca grandiflora Blanco; Salmalia malabarica (DC.) Schott & Endl;
Plant Common Name : Semal, Kat Sawar, K- Auri, Silk Cotton Tree, Kapok Tree • Hindi: Shalmali, Semal • Manipuri: Tera • Assamese: Dumboil • Tamil: Sittan, Sanmali • Malayalam: Unnamurika • Nepali: Simal
Plant Family : Malvaceae
Description : Deciduous trees; to 45 m high; bole straight, buttress 1-2 m high, armed with conical prickles; bark 20-30 mm thick, grey mottled with white, longitudinal fissures shallow; blaze pink, marked with triangular rays; branches horizontal and more or less whorled; branchlets prickly. Leaves digitately-compound, alternate, stipulate; stipules small, lateral; rachis 12-25 cm, stout, swollen at base, glabrous; leaflets 5-7, whorled; petiolule 14-25 mm long, stout, glabrous; lamina 10-20 x 2-6 cm, elliptic, elliptic-ovate or elliptic-obovate; base attenuate or cuneate; apex caudate-acuminate; margin entire, glabrous, chartaceous; lateral nerves 8-14 pairs, parallel, slightly ascending, prominent, secondary laterals also seen; intercostae reticulate. Flowers bisexual, dark crimson, 6-7 cm across, solitary or 2-5 together; pedicels 1-2 cm long, thick; calyx campanulate, irregularly lobed, lobes 3-4 x 3 cm, coriaceous, glabrous to sparsely puberulous outside, silky inside, falling of with corolla and stamens; petals 5, 8.5-18 x 3.5-5 cm, obovate to elliptic-obovate, recurved, fleshy, tomentellous outside, imbricate; stamens 65-80, 3-7.5 cm long in 5 bundles; staminal tube short; filaments flat, angular, connate only at the base of the bundles; anthers reniform; ovary conical, tomentose, 5-celled; ovules many; style exceeding the stamens; stigma 5-fid, lobes spreading. Fruit a capsule, 8-10 x 3 cm, downy tomentose, cylindrical, cuneate on both ends, blackish and glabrous at maturity, the columella brownish; seeds numerous, pyriform, smooth, dark brown, embedded in white cotton.
Plant Location in Melghat : -
Medicinal Use / Activity : anti-pyretic–bark extract, Antitumor, Anticancer, Abortifacient, Aphrodisiac, birth control, sexual diseases and tonic, anti-inflammatory, Impotency, asthma and small-pox boils, Muscular Injury, Wounds, Anti-Diarrheal, Leprosy, Pimples and skin disease, Anthelmintics and anti-diabetic
Plant's Phytochemicals : COMPOUNDS: Flower - Xanthones(3): 4-O-p-hydroxybenzoyl mangiferin; mangiferin; isomangiferin; Flavonoids(9): Apigenin; Vitexin; Isovitexin; Vicinine-2; Quercetin; Quercetin 3-O-beta-glucoside; Quercetin 3-O-alpha-arabinoside; Isorhamnetin 3-O-alpha-glucuronide; Rutin; Lupeol; beta-sitosterol; Naphthaquinone; Naphthol; Naphthol ether; Desmethyl naphthol; Isohemigossypol; 7-Hydroxycadalene; beta-sitosterol-3-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside; Hentriacontane; Hentriacontanol; Kaempferol; Quercetin; Anthocyanin A; Anthocyanin B; Palmatic acid; Octadecyl palmitate; n-Hexacosanol; Gallic acid; Tannic acid;

ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (10):

Lupeol;

Beta-sitosterol;

Quercetin;

Rutin;

Kaempferol;

Apigenin;

Isorhamnetin;

Gossypol;

Gallic Acid;

Tannic acid;

Plant's Current Status : Common
Plant's Cross Database Reference : 259142
Reference : Dhore M. A. (1984) The flora of melghat tiger reserve - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Silk%20Cotton%20Tree.html - https://indiabiodiversity.org/species/show/31106 - http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Bombax+ceiba - http://www.phcogfirst.com/sites/default/files/PC_2_3_2.pdf
Reference : ~ Jennifer L. McCracken, Sreenivas P. Veeranki, Bill T. Ameredes, William J. Calhoun; "Diagnosis and Management of Asthma in Adults - A Review"; JAMA (2017); 318(3): 279-290 PMID : 28719697

~ Pankaj H. Chaudhary and Somshekhar S. Khadabadi; "Bombax ceiba Linn.: Pharmacognosy, Ethnobotany and Phyto-pharmacology"; Pharmacognosy Communications (2012); 2(3): 1-9 PMID :

~ Chen S; "Natural products triggering biological targets - a review of the anti-inflammatory phytochemicals targeting the arachidonic acid pathway in allergy asthma and rheumatoid arthritis."; Curr Drug Targets (2011); 12(3): 288-301 PMID : 20955151

~ Park HS, Kim SR, Kim JO and Lee YC; "The roles of phytochemicals in bronchial asthma"; Molecules (2010); 15(10): 6810-34 PMID : 20924320

~ Chandra Prakash Kala; "Aboriginal uses and management of ethnobotanical species in deciduous forests of Chhattisgarh state in India"; Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2009); 5(20): 1-9 PMID :

~ Balaji Kasirajan, Rajadurai Maruthamuthu, Vidhya Gopalakrishnan, Krithika Arumugam, Hudson Asirvatham, Vidya Murali, Ramya Mohandass and Anusha Bhaskar; "A database for medicinal plants used in treatment of asthma"; Bioinformation (2007); 2(3): 105-106 PMID :

~ Dhore MA and Joshi PA; "Flora of Melghat Tiger Reserve"; Directorate, Project Tiger, Melghat (1988); PMID :

~ Omesh Bajpai, Jitendra Pandey and Lal Babu Chaudhary; "Ethnomedicinal Uses of Tree Species by Tharu Tribes in the Himalayan Terai Region of India"; Research Journal of Medicinal Plant (2016); 10(1): 19-41 PMID :

~ Patil, HM and Bhaskar, VV; "Medicinal uses of plnats by tribal medicine men of Nandurbar district in Maharashtra"; Natural Product Radiance (2006); 5(2): 125-130 PMID :

~ Kavishankar, G.B; Lakshmidevi, N.; Murthy, S.M.; Prakash, H.S. and Niranjana, S.R.; "Diabetes and medicinal plants-A review"; Int J Pharm Biomed Sci (2011); 2(3): 65-80 PMID :

Kingdom : Plantae - Plants
Phylum : Tracheophyta
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision : Spermatophyta - Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class : Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons
Subclass :
Order : Malvales
Family : Malvaceae - Mallow family
Genus : Bombax
Species : Bombax ceiba L.

Bombax ceiba L.
Bombax ceiba L.
Bombax ceiba L.
Bombax ceiba L.
Bombax ceiba L.
Bombax ceiba L.