Ixora coccinea L. (RUBIACEAE)
Common names
Kannada & Tulu: Kepula.
Malayalam: Thetti, Techi.
Sanskrit: Bandhuka, Raktaka.
Tamil: Sinduram, Thetti.
Telugu: Koranan, Mankana.
Description: A large shrub. Leaves opposite, oblong or elliptic, 5-10 x 3-6 cm, rounded or subcordate at base, obtuse or shortly acute at apex, coriaceous, pale when dry; main nerves 8-12 pairs. Flowers in dense sessile or very shortly peduncled corymbiform cymes, bright scarlet. Calyx tube short, lobes 4, glabrous, green. Corolla tube 2.5 – 4 cm long, lobes 4, scarlet. Stamens 4, on the mouth of the corolla. The ovary is 2-locular, featuring a filiform style and a fusiform stigma. The fruit is a drupe, globose, with a diameter of about 1 cm, smooth, and adorned with calyx-teeth, appearing purple or red upon ripening.
Flowering & Fruiting : Throughout the year.
Distribution: India: Western Peninsula, in forest lands at low elevations near the sea. Sri Lanka.
Uses: Fruit edible. The wood is hard, tough, durable and suitable for tool handles. Often cultivated in gardens throughout India for ornament. Root stomachic, sedative, astringent, antiseptic, used in loss of appetite, hiccup, diarrhoea, dysentery, applied to sores and chronic ulcers; flower given in dysentery, leucorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, haemoptysis and catarrhal bronchitis, decoction used in eye troubles and as a vulnerary.
