Callicarpa tomentosa (L.) Murray (VERBENACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Doddanathada gida, Pandavara bathi.
Malayalam: Nallapompil.
Tamil: Verrilaippattai, Vettilaipattai.
Description: Compact trees reaching heights of 8-10 meters with rough, brownish bark; their young branches are covered in star-shaped hairs. Leaves opposite, ovate, elliptic-lanceolate or elliptic-oblong, 10-25 x 7-15 cm, acute or rounded at base, acuminate at apex, entire or toothed, dark-green, rugose, glabrous and shining above, with dense stellate tomentum beneath; main nerves 6-9 pairs; petioles 2-4 cm long, stout, densely tomentose. Flowers sessile, in axillary and terminal umbellate cymes, lilac purple. Calyx companulate, lobes 4, densely stellately tomentose. Corolla tubular, lobes 4. Stamens 4, exserted; filaments short, filiform; anthers cream-coloured. Ovary 4-locular; style short; stigma bilobed. Fruit a drupe, globose, ca 4 mm in diam., smooth, shining, black. Seeds 4, oblong.
Flowering & Fruiting : Throughout the year.
Distribution: India: Common in forests of the Western Ghats, up to 1300 m.
Uses: Wood pale brown, smooth, moderately hard, used for carving the legs of cots. Decoction of the bark used in fever, hepatic obstruction and skin diseases; leaves boiled in milk and used as wash for aphthae of mouth; flower and fruit used in epilepsy, diseases of nervous system, haemorrhage, oedema, cardiac diseases and dysuria.